


Europa and the Bull

by Faylette



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftercare, Blow Jobs, Breasts, Childbirth, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cunnilingus, Dad!Bull, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Forced Orgasm, Hurt/Comfort, Impregnation, Lactation Kink, Married Life, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Name-Calling, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Pregnant Sex, Size Difference, Spanking, Things that make me blush, Vaginal Fingering, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:45:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faylette/pseuds/Faylette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being with the Iron Bull for some time, Ellana Lavellan gains the confidence to share one of her more nagging fantasies with him, and he's happy to oblige her whimsical desires. After all, Qunari and elves can't have children. Right?</p><p>A fill for: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/12449.html?thread=48417441</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oof.
> 
> Confession: this took weeks of psyching up to convince myself that I could actually write it. Let's just say there's a lot of territory here that I haven't explored before. With that said, I hope it's enjoyable, and I am absolutely open to any suggestions, advice, or criticism that you think would improve the work or help me understand what I've gotten into.
> 
> A fill for: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/12449.html?thread=48417441

Ellana Lavellan may be short, even shorter than most elves, and she may be small, but she’s as hardy as they come. Of that, the Iron Bull has no doubt. The petite elf could endure a serious beating, both in battle and in bed, and there could be an endless debate over which she enjoyed more — and sometimes the former led to the latter, through the reverse has yet to occur.

It was also painfully obvious when she had an itch that she needed him to scratch, as is the case today, when her meager form tries to drag the mountain-like Qunari up to her quarters. He doesn’t really mind her shameless lack of subtlety, because it is hard to complain about a woman who is so eager to jump his bones that she can’t keep it to herself, and because, as a result, has a tendency to raise the eyebrows of anyone in the vicinity. That often had the potential to be a damn funny sight, depending on who was around and how colourful his little elf’s language got.

He goes over their ground rules again. She knows them, and he knows she knows them, but he never wants her to feel unsafe or coerced. He tells her to say the watchword. He keeps her eyes on her lips, on the Dalish markings that occupy a small part of them, as they open and then jut out to give the syllables life.

“Katoh.” The hunger in her voice is tangible.

“Good.”

“Before we start,” she says, raising up her hands to halt his advance, “I wanted to try… something different.”

“You’re blushing. Oh, I have to hear this.”

“I am not!” Her fist finds its way into his side instantaneously, probably without forethought, and she shakes her head. “Forget it. You’d think it’s weird.”

He makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Trust me, I’m sure I’ve been asked to do weirder shit. I’ll bet you five sovereigns you can’t make the Iron Bull blush.”

“I want you to get me with child.” The words fall out as soon as he stops talking and are stoppered just as quickly. She tightens up every muscle in her face, as if bracing for impact.

“Interesting.” And it is, actually. “You still owe me though.”

Ellana groans. “Just pretend I didn’t say that just now. Please.”

“I could do that, if you want,” he tells her, at a slow, even pace. “Or I could do what you actually want.”

She raises her eyes up to him, a bit of the torment smoothing out from her features. “You would?”

“Whatever gets your blood pumping, Kadan. I just hope you realize that I can’t exactly _do_ what that little elf body of yours craves.” And he is sure of that, never having seen any other result between a Qunari and an elf (or a human or a dwarf, for that matter) tumbling through the sheets other than a good time and messy sheets.

“I know, of course, and that’s not what I want, I think.” Her voice regains some of its usual confidence as she works out her thoughts aloud. “I just… like the idea, I suppose. I’m not even sure what this would entail, actually.”

He steps forward, fencing her in close to the wall. “Why don’t we just see where we can go with this?”

She takes a breath in, preparing herself for what’s to come, whatever it is. “I’m ready.”

And without further delay, he lifts her up and drives her body tight between his and the stone, forcing an excited gasp out of her lungs. His enormous hands form a sturdy seat for her ass, supporting her as she tries to encircle his waist with her legs, too short for her feet to even meet each other. Her bare heels dig into the rough skin of his back and her arms wrap around a neck that rivals her own waist in breadth, holding him as possessively as she is able to. The warmth between her thighs grinds greedily against his steadily-swelling cock. She’s getting bold, trying to take some measure of control. She may just be prodding him to put her in her place, but regardless, that’s what he’ll do.

He moves his hand, for one is sufficient to keep her steady, and sunders through the middle of her shirt with his fingers, having no regard for the garment’s fasteners, one of which falls to the ground with a metallic clink. He shoves that hand beneath her sheer undershirt, cupping the whole of her breast with almost comical ease, rasping over the stiff nub with his thumb.

“What do you want?” he growls.

She closes her eyes. “I want—”  

Ellana winces at her nipple being pinched between his massive digits, crying out at the sting. “Look at me when I talk to you,” he commands. She does, locking her two bright blue eyes with his one of grey. “There. _What do you want_?”

“I want you to fuck me, over and over again, until,” she falters, eyelashes fluttering away from his sight as her head turns.

He punishes her for that, gripping her tit hard again, and then removing his hand from under her clothing to take ahold of her neck, forcing her to look forward. He needs to hear her say it. “Until _what_?”

The elf swallows, and he feels the muscles of her throat ripple beneath his palm. She then speaks slowly, but clearly, to him. “Until your baby is in my belly.”

His cock throbs at the words, at the longing way she says them. Huh. Maybe he could really get into this.

He kisses her with all the force of a raging storm, battering down the gates of her mouth with his deft tongue, piercing the soft flesh of her lips with his teeth, biting and tugging until he feels her moans on his face and he knows he’s leaving marks so the whole damn world would know that she is his. And, fuck, that image she conjured in his head would be one hell of a mark to show off — it drives him to such an intense madness that he has to calm himself, and remind himself just who’s in charge here.

Squeezing her against him with his hefty arms, his tongue buried in her mouth, he lumbers backwards, crashing down on one of her sofas with her straddling his lap. Ellana’s clothes are all but ripped off then, her pants and smallclothes voraciously and sloppily peeled off from her skin and tossed aside. One hand reaches around to squeeze at her haunches, the other slips between her legs and teases her wet folds — and fuck are they _wet_ ; how long she must have been thinking of him, thinking of this, imagining his seed taking hold inside of her. His prick aches for being inside of his pants instead of inside of her cunt, but he must prime her to take him, and make her ache in anticipation as much as he is now.

He thrusts one finger inside of her, and a second soon after. She accepts them so masterfully, so much more easily than she used to. Her breathing comes to take on the rhythm of his fingers, and then struggles to keep any rhythm at all when his fingers curve inwards and his thumb traces circles around her clit.

“You’re fucking drenched for me,” he rasps, merely stating fact, as he quickens his pace. “You want it. Tell me how much you want it.”

“There is nothing I want more,” she says, the cadence and pitch of her voice fluctuating as he prods at her, “than becoming full with your child. And then everyone will know that I. Ride. The. Bull.”

_Fuck._ Whether she knows it or not, she’s driving him absolutely fucking mad. A voice rattling in the back of his skull convinces him that he’s coaxed her more than enough, true or not. He removes his fingers from within her and tosses her scanty form around, binding her against him with his hands, her back sinking into his hefty torso. His cock, finally freed, slides through her slick thighs and against her slit, only for a moment, before he guides the engorged head inside, stretching her even further than with those two fingers. A jittery gasp escapes her mouth, and he knows that her brow gnarls and her lips purse at the size of him, even as she faces away. He leans back into the sofa, taking her with him, so she can see him sheathe himself up to the hilt in her — oh, the delight he takes in having her watch just how much of him she can fit in her. He takes ahold of her from behind one knee, obtaining more control over the angle and depth of his penetration, and gropes at the front of her body with his hand, still wet with her own juices.

At his first sight of Ellana, soaked in the torrents of the Storm Coast, he didn’t see much that appealed to his tastes, and for that, he looks back at himself with shame. The entirety of her tiny, naked body entices him: her flat-as-a-board stomach, her small, perky breasts, and even her bony ass can easily get him hard by virtue of being part of this badass woman who could ignite her foes and send airborne dragons hurtling into the ground by freezing their wings solid. But as he indulges himself with everything so small about her, he pictures it: her middle growing round with their half-breed, her tits swollen with milk, maybe her legs and arms putting on some meat in the process — and all because of him. All because of the Iron Bull. All because of what he was doing to her right now.

_Fuck._ Now he’s just doing it to himself.

“You’re going to get fat with my seed,” he grunts, ramming his length back into her as his palm envelops her empty belly. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she moans, breathless. “Yes.”

“And I’ll keep you like that, again and again, always with my child.”

Her thin fingers skulk their way down to her groin, finding but a moment of refuge between her folds before being yanked away, a massive hand throttling her wrist.

“Not yet,” he orders. “Not until you’ve earned it.”

She bows with some reluctance to his will, knowing deep down that the increasing need will only make the eventual release so much greater. He fucks her hard, without reservation, putting so much weight behind each thrust that her entire body bounces up with him. Her voice carries, heavy with moans and cusses and just the right amount of pain to make the pleasure stand out against it, setting every sense afire, alive. His climax mounting to the point of no return, it takes all of his power to not crush her wrist with his fist as he drives the whole of his cock inside of her one last time, and comes, filling her with what she desires, groaning huskily in her ear. He pants, though not as loudly as her, and releases his grip, letting her know that she’s earned the right.

And her hand shoots straight for her clit, desperately stroking at herself to untie the knots he set in her, to reach her own sweet release. Bull remains inside of her dripping slit, still quite large even as he wanes, and touches every part of her that would bring her closer — her breasts, the inside of her thighs, the nape of her neck, her abdomen, just below the navel. It’s not long before her breaths become sharp and short. At last, her hips convulse, and everything that was once tight unwinds in a blissful instant. She recedes into soft pants, the only noise breaking the room’s silence, and he removes himself from her, settling her down on her back, legs atop his lap.

“See, was that really so hard?” he asks, receiving only a satisfied smirk in return, as she’s certainly still tumbling down from her heights. He reaches over, taking ahold of and massaging her wrist with his thumb. “Need me to do anything for you, Kadan? Does anything hurt?”

“Not more than I can manage,” she tells him, regaining her ability to form a sentence without gasping for air. Bull thinks she sees her blush, but her face is already so red from the act that it’s hard to tell. “You actually enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“More than I expected to, at least.” He places her hand on top of her abdomen, then sinks his into the backrest and sighs. “Slaying dragons, sealing rifts that shit out demons, bringing out new sexual fetishes in others — is there anything you can’t do?”

“I’ve yet to find a reliable way to communicate with nugs, but I’m still young.”

A roar of a laugh fills the room. He loves her more than he knows how to put in words, so he gives her touches, hard when she needs them to be, soft when she needs them even more.

 

Later, they speak at length about what had transpired that night, and agree to work Ellana’s fantasy (and Bull’s, more and more) into their role play grab bag. It doesn’t take long for the kink to weave its way into all of their encounters; even when she’s bound or spanked or deprived of her sight and hearing, getting her pregnant becomes the cornerstone upon which all their sexual activity builds upon. Even despite its impossibility, the idea fails to lose its novelty or its appeal, as illustrated by the constant noise, and Bull’s constant oaths to give her a child, reverberating out of the Inquisitor’s quarters, night after night.

And then, as time passes, something begins to change. Ellana becomes faint and nauseous at times, her breasts become so tender that she has to use her watchword to direct him away for them, her clothes start to feel a bit tighter, and her courses, as unpredictable as they can be for her, cease completely.

And the fantasy becomes more real than they ever thought possible.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, this chapter is a tease (is it a tease if I tell you it's a tease?). If you're just here for the smut, you'll have to wait a little longer! :(
> 
> Anyway, thank you all so much for your comments and kudos. It makes me really happy to know the thing I feel weird about writing is being enjoyed! :)

 

            Ellana breathes in deeply, filling her lungs almost to the point of straining them, exhales, and looks up at him. “I’m with child,” she stammers, her voice caught up in those over-full lungs. But there is some small measure of relief for having told him, for being able to do something, _anything,_ when everything in her life seems so very out of her control.

            A particularly arrogant smirk crosses Bull’s face — not at all the reaction she was expecting, nor the one she had steeled herself for. He moves in close to her, taking one of her shoulders into each of his hands. “You must be by now, with how much I fuck you, and fill you—“

            “No,” she cuts him off, using what physical strength she possesses to back away, out from his grasp. Her reaction sobers him immediately, concern wiping away all traces of that smirk. “This isn’t role-playing, this isn’t in-character, this…” A mix of frustration and desperation take her words away from her. In their absence, her tiny and soft hands take one of his, large and scarred, and she pulls it towards her, against her abdomen. She guides him downwards, to have him feel the small, but unmistakable, curve there. It was taut and firmly-shaped, giving no impression that she had simply become put on some weight in the wake of their grand victory. She squeezes at the hand that is in hers. “This is real.”

            “Oh, you’ve _gotta_ be shitting me.” There. That was the reaction she was expecting. He begins to pace about, throwing his arms up and tossing out a stream of expletives, not directed at Ellana, but at whatever instrument of fate could conceive, quite literally, of such an absurdity, or perhaps merely at the walls. Then, in the midst of his uncharacteristic descent into panic, he notices her, shrinking in the spot she stands, and wills himself calm.

            “Shit, sorry, you don’t need that.” He places a hand on her shoulder, making sure not to rest too much of his weight on her, so he is the one supporting her. “Are you all right, Kadan?”

            She nods slightly, and then puts more weight behind a second nod.

            “You’re really…?”

            “The healer is certain.” She presses her hand against her belly, feeling its fullness, even though it is still small. She did not need another’s confirmation to know; her instinct, her own body can tell her, just as it tells her when she is wanting for food, or for sleep, or warmth. The healer was a mere formality in the matter.

            There is silence, and then the sound of Bull’s deep, drawn-out sigh. “Whatever you need,” he says, his voice measured, “or whatever you need me to do, just let me know. You’re the boss.”

            Her words get caught in her throat before she can release them. “You’re serious.” It is a realization, not a question.

            “You’re damn right I’m serious. That’s my kid.” Those words sound strange in his mouth, like he’s speaking a language he has little experience with. It is obvious that he has not had to say them before, at least not with the weight of reality behind them.

            The conviction in his words awes her, ridding every trace of doubt from her mind. “You... would want to be a father, then?”

            “Can’t say it’s ever been on my mind, not seriously. It’s not something you really think about under the Qun.” His hand wavers in front of him, then covers hers, still resting against her stomach. “But I’d be damned to find someone better to make me one.”

            She chuckles, surprised by just how much her mood has changed, as has his. “Are you going soft on me, Bull?”

            “Bah. Never,” he says with an air of pride. “You should know there’s no sentimentality in the truth.”

            A moment of quiet transpires, free of the tension that existed not long ago. There is uncertainty, yes, and a mountain of anxiety about where things would go from here, but she is assured that she has him by her side. That certainty is enough for now.

            “So, Elle...”

            “Yes?” Ellana dips her head to one side, inquisitive. “What is it, Bull?”

            “So your tits _are_ bigger,” he announces, as if he’s been illuminated by some profound knowledge. “I was starting to think my eye was playing tricks on me.”

            She impulsively punches him straight in the gut, eliciting a feeble grunt from him. “Are you always thinking about tits, Bull?” Her attempts at sounding angry are foiled by a burst of laughter she can’t keep to herself.

“Only yours, Kadan,” he says, adding a boisterous laugh to hers. “Only yours.”

 

Time passes. Discussions are had. Agreements are made. Concerns are brought up, one of which stands out among all the others.

“Can I still plow you, though?”

She’s used to his blunt approach to many discussions, but she still chortles at the question. “Of course. Did you think you couldn’t?”

“Wouldn’t it, I don’t know, hurt the kid or something?” There’s no joking tone in his voice, only an unease that Ellana finds absolutely touching.

She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. My Keeper actually encourages it when our women are with child. Says is makes it easier.”

“Makes _what_ easier?”

“Having the baby. Getting it out.” She makes a sweeping motion downwards, apparently to illustrate the concept, and immediately feels ridiculous for having done so.

A blank “Ah” is his reply to that. “All right, so let’s assume sex _is_ good for you. That’s all well and good. Now what about what _we_ do?”

She taps the tip of her index finger against the corner of her lip. That was something her Keeper never touched on.

And since they neither of them consider themselves qualified enough to dispense knowledge on the subject, they decide to visit a healer together to see someone who may be. The soft-faced old lady who sees to them confirms, unfazed, that should no problems arise, they can knock boots to their hearts’ desire. She then has to try to remain professional and composed while the Iron Bull asks about the safety or feasibility of practically everything he’s ever done with Ellana in the bedroom, or elsewhere. At her reluctant prompting, he also has to explain the majority of the acts he brings up to the poor woman, often with more detail than is probably necessary. After he shares the intricacies of hogtying, the healer stops him and gives the two some basic guidelines to follow, upon which they can judge the safety of what they want to do:

No lying on the stomach. No lying on the back for extended periods of time (“Good,” Bull remarks, “that’s the boring one”). No impact on the abdomen or the chest. No tying up the torso. Nothing that could potentially result in a fall. No restriction of the breath.

Thoroughly wearied by the conversation, the healer tells them to use their best judgement and to come back later with any questions that arise, though she adds that last part with some reluctance.

When they finally leave and get out of earshot, Ellana turns to Bull while they walk and asks, “You weren’t actually thinking of hogtying me while I was pregnant, were you?”

“No, I assumed that was off the table from the start. But did you see the look on her face?”

She gapes with a disbelief that she can’t really justify after being with him for so long. “You were messing with her.”

He howls with laughter. “And it was golden. I didn’t it think it would top her ‘nipple clamps’ face, but I’m not ashamed about being proved wrong.”

“You’re such an ass.” She waits for his mirth to subside before speaking again. “So, do you feel informed now?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Pretty horny, too. It was a titillating little chat.”

She responds with a voice as smooth as silk. “Whatever will you do about that?”

He strokes his chin repeatedly in mock-thought, “You’re putting me on the spot here, but I was thinking of taking you up to your quarters, laying you gently on your side, and taking you like an animal until you scream. Just an idea, though.”

And she grins to let him know what she thinks of his idea.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's filth again! And there shall be more! I hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> And I don't really know how I'm supposed to warn for this, but there's a bit of name-calling in this chapter, if that makes you uncomfortable.

Bull didn’t think it was possible to be any more bewitched by this runt of an elf, but oh, how very mistaken he was.

It seemed like almost no time had passed since Ellana had first pressed his hand against that little bump, so meager that anyone would doubt that there was life within her. No such doubt could possibly exist now. From the side, that once-little bump now swells out farther than her chest, which means even more now with how much breasts have grown. In pursuit of comfort, she’s taken to wearing flowing dresses and robes, often cinched right below her chest — the antithesis of the snug shirts and trousers that always showed off the outline of her slight form. In her new wardrobe, Bull finds himself focusing on things he wouldn’t have thought to be interested in, like the way the fabric drapes off from her protruding middle, both concealing that curve and emphasizing its presence at the same time.

And the sight is all because of him. All because of the baby _he_ put inside of her. It’s almost maddening how much he wants her all the time, and at this very moment.

And it’s not just because of the way she looks, but just as much because of the way she acts. Right now, as he sits on her bed behind her to admire his Kadan’s body, she’s doing essentially the same thing. She has her side facing the full-length mirror in front of her, immersed in studying her silhouette as if she herself were a work of art. Her hands bunch up the skirt of her robes, hugging them tight to her belly, giving them both a gratifying glance of the true figure beneath the clothes, of the fruit of the all the nights that he took her as she begged for him to fill her with his seed, to give this to her, and he sees her smile in the glass. Bull does not need to be told, although he often is, because everything about her behaviour tells him that she absolutely revels in being with child. His child.

He can take credit for all that too, of course.

Ellana turns around and steps towards him, her stride slightly shorter than it would have been a few months ago, though he reckons he’d be one of the few to really notice something like that. In any case, even as it’s altered, discerning that need in her steps, that singular purpose that they’re burdened with, is simple. She rests her hands on her hips, standing up tall, just hovering at height with his horns as he’s seated.

“You have something I need,” she coos, her voice all honey and wine. “And I think you should give it to me.”

“Is that so?” His chest huffs out in an otherwise subdued laugh. “Haven’t you had enough already?”

Her fingers brush against her robe, where the two sides cross over her chest, tempting him. “Can I ever have enough of your cock?”

He pulls himself up to his feet, towering over her, and grasps her by the jaw. “You mistake who exists for whose pleasure. You don’t get to make demands.”

There is no fear in her eyes, only a longing awe. “Do you not owe the mother of your child,” she goads him on, savouring the effect the sound of those words will have over him, “all that her body desires?”

“No,” he responds coolly, roughly running his thumb over her insolent mouth. “This gives you no power over me. This,” he pauses for emphasis, covering her middle with as much of his other hand as he can, “is a privilege, a gift from the Iron Bull to his slut.” His voice raises to form the word she loves so much to hear from his lips. “Do I make myself clear?”

An impish smirk overtakes her lips when his thumb slides over to her cheek. “I think you’ll have to show me what you mean.”

She is _far_ too good at aggravating him, and he knows that she knows it, and he would never change it.

“You have a smart mouth today,” he says evenly. “Let’s see what else you can do with it.”

Still cautiously, even as his blood races and throbs through his veins, he swings Ellana around and seats her down on the edge of the bed, where he was just moments ago. He loosens his belt, throwing it aside, and liberates his stiff shaft from cloth that stained to hold it back. WIth his own grip to guide him, he presses the ruddy and swollen head against her closed mouth, smearing the beads of his lust on her soft lips.

“Open your mouth,” he orders.

She does, separating her lips far enough to accept his width, her large eyes pointed up in an unbroken gaze. He slides himself into her as far she can take him, relishing in just how large he looks while so inadequately contained in her little mouth. With the font of her impudence well-sealed, he goes further to display his dominance by grabbing at the tie of her robe and yanking it loose. He shoves the sheer fabric out of the way, and gets an eyeful of her tits, of her enlarged and darkened nipples, seemingly begging for his attention — not that they ever needed the help. He then grabs a fistful of her hair, so incredibly thick and silken now, to take control from both sides of her head as he thrusts rhythmically into it, while she gurgles and sputters saliva.

“That’s better,” he praises her, momentarily slowing down his pace so he can keep the semblance of control in his voice. “When I come,” he pauses for a rapid thrust, to keep her on her toes, “you will drink up every drop like it’s fucking ambrosia. Is that clear?”

She nods as much as she is able, and a soft sound of assent vibrates along his shaft. He tenses unbearably for it, one step from toppling right over the precipice. He pulls his cock back to just beyond her lips and spends himself with a bestial grunt, letting his seed pool in her mouth. It is done on purpose, so she must swallow it with purpose, of her own accord, to follow his order. He soaks in the sight of her, with his cum overflowing from her mouth, dribbling down her tattooed chin, and watches the centre of her throat jut out as she gulps. But even with his gaze so intent on her neck, his hawk-eye does not overlook what she has failed to partake of. With his index finger, he brushes up the dab of liquid that had landed on top of her round middle. He brings that finger to her mouth and, without instruction, she takes it into her mouth, sliding her lips over the digit until it is clean.

“Good.” He tips up her head to ensure that their gazes meet. “Now, tell me what you are.”

“A slut.”

He grips her chin more tightly. “Try again.”

“ _Your_ slut.” She emphasizes his possession, giving herself over physically, mentally, linguistically, in every way that he desires, willingly.

“That’s right.”

Bull rewards her for the supplying the correct answer, leaning down to kiss her deeply. Tasting himself in her, all salty and strong, neither repels nor repulses him. It just whets his arousal more to know the taste that’s on her tongue, to know what mark he left inside of her, to know that she was — is —  all his.

“Do you want to do more to you?” he asks, his breath against her face.

“Yes,” she responds without delay.

He laughs beneath his breath, eyeing the curved form just below his vision with a primal hunger. “Aren’t you lucky, then? I’m nowhere near done with you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long! I'm sorry! D: Essays and exams have been consuming all my time (though I did write a paper on cuckoldry in Chaucer and that was pretty neat-o). But I hope this chapter makes up for the wait!

Mere months ago, this was only a fantasy, long-held and greatly coveted, but absolutely out of reach — something she had accepted for almost as long as the fantasy had existed. Ellana had never told her first lover, that boy in her clan who she caught the eye of, of her desires. Maybe it was because she thought it’d scare him off or disgust him, or maybe because they just didn’t tell each other much at all in the first place. After all, they were not bound to each other, and seemingly had no intent to be, and for that they both felt doubly guilty about their hasty, clandestine meetups. With things the way they were, they never had that comfort and trust she valued so much now. So she kept it herself, but as that lean elven body fumbled against hers, she would always imagine growing heavy with his child. She wasn’t particularly fond of him, but it was the best, if not the sole option at the time to fulfill her need. But the fantasy was always brutally snuffed out when he, without fail, would spill himself on her belly — never giving her even the illusion of life taking root there. His doing so was perfectly rational, of course, because discovery would jeopardize so much, but it always made the whole act feel incomplete.

Then along came the Iron Bull, free from any and all qualms and reservations that would prevent him from enthusiastically and plentifully filling her, taking as much pleasure as he gave from doing so. She nightly imagined him making her a mother, and came hard with the thought that her spasming cunt was seizing the cock that would give her a babe. The fantasy, with such fuel behind it, soon consumed her so wholly that she steeled herself and took a risk to share it with him. And it paid off. It absolutely paid off.

She takes an instant, while Bull’s back is turned away from her, to rub her cheeks, sore from keeping her mouth open so wide, but that instant is all she has.

“All fours. Now.”

He snaps his fingers at the mirror she had admired herself in earlier, providing her with a direction to face. He wants to see her, and he wants her to see herself as she takes him, and she can only obey — though she has no objections anyway.

Trying to conceal the awkwardness that the swell of her middle is to blame for, she climbs up on the bed, gets on her knees, and bends over, keeping herself up with her lanky arms. The bed sinks down beneath his mass as he joins her and positions himself behind her body, presented to him. Then he circles his fingers between her thighs, and her breath snags in her throat.

“Do you have any idea how wet you are?” he asks, increasing the tempo. “Do you love it when I fuck your face?”

“Yes,” she says huskily. “I love it no matter how you fuck me.”

“As you should.”

And she sees his mouth crook up, however slightly, at her obedience, when his thick fingers slip right into her. He seems to take the ease of entering her as a signal, and wastes little time before thrusting rapidly, so forcefully that Ellana has to steady her body against his movements, an effort that she’s steadily losing the power to uphold. She’s sensitive, more sensitive than she thought, more sensitive than she’s ever been, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the pregnancy itself, or because of how much she loves it, or how much Bull loves what he’s made of her, but she does know that every time his fingers sink back into her greedy pussy her breath gets quicker and her hair stands up straighter. He wraps his hand around the curve of her belly, still fingering her relentlessly, possessing her, all of her, all that she freely offers. And the tension builds so fast, so suddenly, but so recognizably, that its presence solely through his pulsing fingers would surprise her if she had the mental capacity to such a thought. Her breath slinks into shallow gasps as he brings her to that unmistakable point of no return, and he sends her careening right off into the inebriating bliss of her climax, sending tremors out to every little part of her little body. The waves ebb away and her gasps become softer, and she feels Bull still inside of her, inert. She looks up at the reflection of his face, to his thin-lipped glare.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” His accusatory tone makes her gulp, and revives her anticipation. “Odd, I don’t remember saying you could come. Am I mistaken?”

She’s still so foggy and caught up in the heaviness of his voice that she forgets to reply. Bull, refusing to let her get away with her transgression, withdraws his fingers out from her and strikes her ass with his open palm. “I asked you a question. _Were you allowed to come?_ ”

“No,” she murmurs. “I couldn’t help it.” Her skin stings with another blow, harder than the last, and she yelps. She can handle pain, take it with a straight face, like she did when she received her vallaslin, but that’s not what Bull wants; he wants her moaning and screaming and begging and by the gods will she give that to him.

He presses up close, so she can feel his stiff cock against her slit, and leans over her enough that his abdomen makes contact with her back, but without putting his weight on her. He still holds his hand sturdy against her fruitful middle, and when he rubs a circle around its peak, his shaft reactively twitches and he exhales his warm breath on the back of her neck. Ellana licks her lips, ready to glut herself on all that he’ll do to her.

“Listen carefully, because I will not tolerate mistakes,” Bull hisses, mouth near her ear. “You are going to come for me over, and over, and over again, until your legs give out and your mind goes blank and you’re begging for rest, and then you’ll keep on coming for me. Do I need to repeat myself?”

She shakes her head, and as she does, he grabs ahold of her chin from behind, angling it up and as far to the side as is possible. He maneuvers his head as to keep his horns from interfering, and kisses the edge of her mouth. His hips move away, and then slam back against her body, thrusting wholly into her cunt. She groans against his lips, kissing her with an almost chaste gentleness as he rails her mercilessly, like a rutting animal obedient only to his urges. His fingers, notwithstanding what they just did to her, can never hope to match the sheer sense of fullness that the girth of his cock gives her. Every nerve between her thighs cries out on contact, everything is so intense, so sharply perceived. Her eyes squint shut, giving her one less sense to overload her with, but that will not do.

“Open your eyes,” the voice behind her head demands. Bull hooks his finger into her open mouth, pinching her cheek, making it hurt. “Look at yourself when I’m fucking you.”

Her eyes flutter open, regain their clarity, and realign with the sight in front of her: the Qunari’s immense, muscular form dominates hers, bestrides her narrow body like a colossus, driving her body forward with each buck of his hips. She can barely believe it, but it’s not long before he sets her off for a second time, tightening up even more around his still-thrusting shaft, shaking up the sound of her moans. He stands by his word, and doesn’t stop, not even for a moment, right through the haziness of her orgasm.

“Just look at your tits bounce,” he growls over Ellana, taking some of her attention away from the tenderness of her well-engorged snatch. “Does it please you to have tits for once?”

It’d be a low blow if she didn’t know that he would worship her body no matter what, sincerely and blatantly, so she just tells him, trying so hard to keep her voice steady, “As long as they please you.”

He lets loose a throaty laugh as both of his hands find their way to her chest. “Oh, they do.” He squeezes her breasts between his fingers, clearly savouring their size, and feels about, making her jerk when he runs over her firm nipples, then making her gasp for air when he twinges them. She recalls the word, but doesn’t say it, doesn’t want to, not when she hears him grunt the way he does. “It is fucking _torture_ waiting for you to start leaking.” He bucks hard to underscore his frustration. “I’ll never want you to stop.”

“Never let me,” she pleads between moans, picturing him partaking of sustenance that his seed roused from her flesh, demanding it from her, submitting to him.

His strong hands give her another good squeeze. “Is that what you want? An endless flow of milk from all the babies I put in your belly?”

“Yes, fuck, _yes_ ,” she nearly screams for how bad she wants it. To give him child after child, to have her body wax large again and again, to always have him beside her, to pleasure her, to hold her, to love her more fiercely than she ever knew was possible, to make her more than she is. “ _Yes_.”

“Good. We’re on the same page then.” It’s fucking honey to Ellana’s ears.

Bull tears his hands away from her breasts, something that she knows must be agonizing, to steady himself and caress her between her thighs, to requite all her obedience. He plies and tempts her clit from its hood to give her the direct contact that makes her limbs quiver from each little movement, soon coaxing a violent climax from her with astonishing ease. He praises her, but for what she can’t be certain — her head feels all full of liquid, separated from all sounds except those she makes for that moment. Then her throbbing legs finally begin to buckle beneath the force of his thrusts and the quakes of her own body, and she slides out from the upright position her thighs had been maintaining. He immediately slaps one of the offending legs, filling the air with the sound of skin against skin, and barks at her, “Get back up.”

“I can’t,” she gasps, just barely coherent.

“And yet you will.” Another sharp spank, this time on the opposite leg.

She struggles to, what with her exhaustion and her unsteadiness and his incessant humping throwing her balance off, but she does, even as all her muscles strain to keep her in place. Even her arms are giving out from supporting her weight, but she does not allow them to falter, not until he is absolutely finished with her. Her eyes return to the mirror, to the image of her quivering from pleasure, her face all red and her skin all slick and glowing with sweat, making her hair stick to her forehead, while the tits her lover adores so much continue bouncing back and forth in time with him — and the look on his face, that singular expression that contains all of his awe and dominance and lust and devotion for her, all for her, for everything that she is. It is this she focuses on as he builds her up and gets her off once again, what she watches through scrunched eyes as she cries out his name and feels his heat pooling inside of her, beads of his cum dripping down the inside of her thighs, seeing the bliss that she gave him with her body.

Bull withdraws from her and eases her down to her side against the mattress, giving her a much-needed and much-deserved rest as he catches his own breath, sitting beside her. “You did very well, Kadan,” he says softly, stroking the length of her warm body. “That felt very, very good.”

She smiles straight at him for his praise while remaining silent, letting him guide her away from the intensity of their lovemaking. He gives her time, knowing how she basks in the quiet and stillness that follows, before speaking to her again.

“What can I do for you?”

She rubs her throat, a wordless signal for her thirst, and he responds right away. He gets up, leaving her sight for a time, and the rush of water into a glass gives confirmation of his actions. She hears his footsteps return to her side, and he places a jug and full glass on the end table. “Let’s get you propped up, all right?” he says, and begins heaping pillows against the headboard, providing a slope for her to lean more-or-less upright against. With meticulous caution, he helps her reposition herself and then offers her the glass. “Can you hold the glass yourself?”

Ellana gives him a petulant nod as she takes it into her hand, enjoying its coolness against her palms, and sates her parched throat. “I’m pregnant, not helpless,” she insisted before gulping down the rest of the water.

He lets out a subdued laugh. “Never had any doubts about that, Kadan. No, I’m gauging your capabilities after coming that much, that fast.” There’s a sort of amazement in his voice as he says that. “Damn, how do you feel after that?”

She thinks as hard as she can to come up with the perfect word, wriggling her brows and poking her tongue against her cheek. “Melted? Really… liquidy. Like boneless, but in a gooder way.”

“You should know I’m seething with envy at your sexual prowess _and_ your eloquence.” She smirks and puts her glass aside, then Bull slides up beside her, wrapping his bulky arms around her. She rests her head against his chest, feels the heart of her heart beating, allows it to soothe her. “I wasn’t too rough with you?”

“No. I didn’t say Katoh, did I?” She breathes in deeply, sinks deeper into the comforting warmth of his body, and continues lazily, “You worry too much about me, Bull.”

He rests her hand on her abdomen, grazing over the curve with all possible gentleness. “I worry as much as I need to.”

Ellana feels the mesmerizing pull of sleep draw her away from consciousness, but she is jarred back awake. It isn’t for any action on Bull’s part; he is stationary, palm still against her middle, but she senses that he’s reacting similarly to her. They both remain silent, waiting to see if they just imagined it, at least in Ellana’s case, when it happens again. Bull opts to comment first.

“Uh, you hungry, Kadan?”

It does kind of feel like hunger pains, like her insides are gurgling, but she feels it again — a fluttering, a tapping, a thud, beneath her skin, and she knows it’s not. “No… can you feel that?”

“I can feel _something_.”

“That’s our baby,” she says. The feel of the words on her lips puts the moment’s significance in perspective, makes everything more real, more tangible, all so fast. She puts her hand to her mouth in an attempt to hold back the wellspring of her emotions even though she knows it’s fated to fail, and the sound of her choking up makes it past her fingers.

“You okay?” He almost uses the same voice as when he cares for her, but there’s something more added to it — excitement, interest, contentment, she can’t place it exactly.

“I’m fine,” she replies, her voice cracking as if to contradict her words, but they don’t, not even when she rubs the back of her hand against her wet eyes. “I’m just happy.”

“Aw.” His embrace around her tightens. “You’re a little too adorable for a woman who just got fucked senseless, you know.”

“I am not!” She turns her tear-stained hand into a fist and punches it into his fleshy middle, knowing perfectly well that it won’t hurt him but hoping that it would get her point across. It does not.

Bull feigns taking a hard blow from his scrawny lover, making an exaggerated grunt on impact, and japes, “For your own sake, I hope our kid doesn’t start flailing around as hard as you do.”

She raises her fist again, but accepts the futility of it and loosens her grip, then puts her little hand atop his. They stay curled up together, more delighted than either would actually admit to feel their child quicken, no matter how slight the movement may be, until the little one presumably tires itself out and returns to sleep, and the thoroughly-spent Ellana follows suit, her head still using the Iron Bull as a cushion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been exactly a month. How about that? But I finally overcame my post-final exams laziness enough to crank out a chapter so LET'S DO THIS THING

Bull has no shortage of tavern-worthy stories at his disposal; really, he would have considered it a big damn shame if heading a mercenary band and being a not-insignificant player in the Inquisition didn’t get him a slew of crazy stories. All you have to do is get a drink in his hand and anything that could be considered an audience in front of him and he would gladly recount that one time his company took down talking trees or covered themselves in feathers for a job, or when he managed to drive his axe dead-centre between the eyes of a swooping, pissed-off high dragon — one of his treasured favourites, even if his witnesses would claim he was a tad off to the right. And that was just a sampling of the extensive list of thrilling, bizarre, near-fatal, and downright insane experiences he’d gathered over the years.

But none of that exactly prepared him for being with a woman on the verge of popping out his kid.

He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, making the mattress sag down as always. “So, they’ve got these strange little birds in Seheron that can’t fly. Real tiny things.”

Ellana, slumped in an armchair as comfortably as her enormous belly will permit, furrows her brow while looking over at Bull. “That came out of nowhere. I can’t wait to see where you’re going with this.”

“Anyway, their eggs are so huge that just before they lay ‘em, these birds can’t eat, or move around much, or… do much of anything, really.” He shrugs. “They just get too big.”

The muscles of her face slack down in subdued unamusement. “So… I remind you of a barely functioning flightless bird?”

“A very, very small bird,” he corrects, as if indignant at such a vital detail. “But what would make you think something like that?”

And, after a pause, she laughs. Good, because that could have easily backfired on him.

Bull is used to picking his words and his moments carefully. His lot within the Ben-Hassrath taught him all he needed to know: how to gauge someone’s mood and use it to your advantage, how to loosen someone’s tongue with the right words, how to say what someone wants to hear so they’ll do what you want them to do. It was an art and a science honed over years of interrogation and espionage, a discipline that the Iron Bull would have once claimed mastery over. Once. His heavily pregnant lover shook the foundations of everything he thought he knew about psychological response.

Most of the time, she was the usual elf he knew: plucky, frank, a little hotheaded — and horny, of course. He couldn’t forget horny. And, for the most part, she was incredibly, overwhelmingly, unbelievably happy, constantly feeling her middle as if she still couldn’t believe there was a baby there, just so happy. Then he could turn away and back and she would be anything but, and anything, no matter how asinine it seemed at its surface, could set her off. Case in point: her usually cold feet often sent her waddling in search of her favourite woolen socks, and one day she could only find one half of the pair. He found her after she combed through the entire room, sobbing to herself in bed.

“What if I lose one of the baby’s socks?” Ellana blubbered, clutching her body-length pillow tight. “And her foot is cold?”

“Uh…” Bull begun, not sure how to approach someone so distressed over socks. He absentmindedly rubbed the part of her back that she often said felt sore as he thought it over. “We’ll get more socks then.”

“And if I lose those too?”

No matter how many times he reassured her that even if she did get into an endless cycle of sock misplacement, everything would turn out okay, she was inconsolable — until about twenty or thirty minutes of hugs and soft words later, when she was red with shame and threatening Bull should he ever tell anyone how foolish she was acting. He swore himself to secrecy, and got her a bag with a seemingly endless amount of socks inside, both to fit her feet and much smaller feet. That made her burst into tears right on the spot. He soon gave up trying to understand the pendulum swing of her moods. He just tried to ride through the storm with her, because the only thing that he fully understood was that each of her irrational and overblown reactions stemmed from something that felt real and grievously serious to her. He held her a lot when she couldn’t handle it; even when his words seemed powerless, keeping her shaking little body steady in his arms seemed to always bring her down a bit easier.

Though, again, she’s not very little at all now.

“I had no idea elves could even get this big,” Bull comments, as he has commented several times before, but if the last couple of months are any sign, it seems like she’ll never stop growing.

“Well, there was a woman in my clan who got about my size when she was with child,” she explains, to his surprise, then begins to fidget with her fingers, her eyes focused on her middle. “Or with children, I guess. She had twins.”

He whistles, impressed. With a healer’s assistance some time ago, they got to hear the little one’s galloping heartbeat. It made Ellana start bawling through a massive grin, but more importantly it made it clear that they were expecting one child, and as it appears now, one formidably large child. Bull has no point of reference for what she’ll be going through in the very near future, but he’s not expecting anything pleasant. It’s been an increasing source of guilt for him, actually — how much he relishes her form so perfectly filled out, he often he envisions her taking him within her heavy body, how much it still thrills him to know that this is his baby inside of her — even as anxiety of the whole thing overtakes her. But he’s been at this for awhile now. He knows now when she needs to hear something, and what, he knows when she needs to be held tight and sheltered, and he definitely knows when she needs to unwind in the way he loves best.

“Hey,” he says, drawing her attention back. “Come over here.”

Her eyes narrow. “What for?”

“Something very much worth your while.” Bull lets the words drip out, all slow and full of promise.

Ellana plants her sock-clad feet fully on the floor and grips the chair’s armrests, ready to get up, and then remains still, save for her thrumming fingers. “Or… you could come over here.”

“You’d be much more comfortable over here.” He runs his hand over the bed, mussing up the soft sheets. “Trust me.”

“Well, I’d much rather stay here,” she insists, stringing the whole sentence together into one elongated word. She crosses her arms to further assert her apparent refusal to move.

He tries not to laugh at how petulant she’s being, because he’s already figured out what’s going on. “Kadan, you can’t get out of the chair, can you?” He poses the question as gently as he’s really capable.

Silence and stillness transpire throughout the whole of the room, as Ellana’s wide eyes bore into the Qunari, like she’s shocked that he could even suggest such a thing. She purses up her lips, probably on the verge of calling him something he’s already been called countless times on account of his intemperate mouth. Then she just sighs, holding her head in one hand, obscuring part of her face. “Possibly.”

Her predicament clarified and admitted, Bull gets up on his feet and approaches his lover, shaking her head and covering her eyes in her wounded pride. He offers her his hand. “Let’s get you out, then.”

She hesitantly peeks through her fingers, then removes her hand from her face, instead using it to accept his offer. With his clasp firm, Bull leans down to wedge his free hand between the chair’s back and her own, keeping her steady as he helps her out of her upholstered trap.

“Thank you, Bull,” she says curtly, because it means she’s admitting that she needed help.

“You should save your gratitude for later.” On that note, he leads her to the bed. With a smirk that belies her shame just a moment ago, Ellana follows, offering no more resistance than the dawdling pace that she cannot easily overcome. With her hand still enclosed in his, like a lady escorted to her seat at a banquet, she sits on the bed, her feet just barely reaching the floor. He gets down on his knees before her and begins to trail his fingers up her body, hands mirroring each other, from her soft thigh, to the round of her broadened hips, sliding her gown up to see the skin beneath it. His hands smooth reverently over her swollen and striped belly, and then her breasts, running over the half-hard buds that her sheer fabric does little to conceal. At last, he comes to a stop just beneath her chin, tipping her gaze towards his, locking her eyes with his.

“You are perfect, Kadan.” A faint groan accents what he sees, what he thinks, what he feels between his loins as he speaks to her. “Perfect.”

His fingers slide back down to her chest, feeling her. While his sizable hands still dwarf her tits, there is a weight, a substance to them that there has never been before, and just holding them makes his cock twinge so easily. He massages the supple flesh, the surfeit of it, her gown still separating her skin from his. Cautiously, experimentally, he, the pads of his thumbs over her taut nipples. He hears her breathe at the touch, and he pauses.

Bull looks up at her face, a slight redness filling in the gaps between the sinuous lines of her tattooed face. “Do you want me to continue?”

She nods simply. The tip of her tongue flits between her scarcely parted lips, returning to them the moisture his touches have spirited away. She has given him her yes, resounding in his head even without words.

He pulls her gown up to her collarbone, baring her breasts to his gluttonous eye. His thumbs trace circles against the deep brown of her areola, feeling the minute bumps peppered liberally over the darkened skin. Ellana’s breath quickens and deepens, pushing Bull’s hands forward with each inhalation, pulling them back with each exhalation, as moans vibrate in her throat. The sounds lure him back to her face, to pupils conquering the colour of her eyes, to lips that fret, unable to be stilled. As her every reaction enthralls Bull, his thumbs continue swirling around, teasing the edges of her stiff nipples, and his fingers knead her flesh. His attention remains firmly set, until the slightest moisture sticks to his thumb. Before he realizes the cause and looks back down, he has already smeared it against her skin, giving it a faint gleam. Small, unspoiled beads, a pale yellow in hue, stipple each engorged nub. He spends a moment, dumbstruck with her tits cupped in his palms, before he does what instinct only seems to demand.

Bull hedges one of her teats between his lips, lapping his tongue all over, tasting the sparse drops of her first milk as they mingle with saliva. It is a faint bittersweetness, gone almost as soon as it is perceived, but it is there is his throat, and it is as real and material as his craving for her.

Though it’s not like he needs more incentive to suck on her tits.

And he does, restraining himself, testing her sensitivity until Ellana makes that little sigh, that signal for more in her wordless language — a tongue that Bull has had much opportunity to acquaint himself with, one he knows how to respond to with his own tongue. His reply is well-received; her back arches, thrusting her breasts further towards him. One hand finds purchase in that new curve, holding her by the small of her back and keeping her close, while his chest presses flush against her heavy middle. Her elven body yields to his efforts, trickling droplets between his lips and between his fingers, while her mouth yields the soft syllables of her mother tongue like a prayer, a plea, a hymn of praise.

“Bull,” she beseeches, the urgent tone of her voice turning his name into a filthy swear, just the way he likes it. “Make me come.”

He frees her moist, reddened nipple from his mouth so she can hear his deep laugh. “Is that an order?”

“It’s what I want.” It is not an obedient appeal, nor an entreaty for his benevolence. It is fact, and she treats it as so — and expects him to do so in kind. It’s the kind of attitude that gets her ass spanked red or her wrists tied to a bedpost, and the impulse does cross Bull’s mind for a second.

On the other hand, she’s probably more than earned the right to order him around by now. Maybe. Just this once.

“Lie back,” he says firmly, requiting her command with his own. He catches a triumphant smile on her face before she takes it out of view, lying flat on the bed, her legs hanging over the edge, so all he can see is the tremendous rise of her belly. Her smallclothes, inundated with evidence of her arousal, are removed with only an inkling of tantalizing slowness, just enough to make her hips squirm in anticipation. That little movement makes it torture to not bury his prick into her right at that moment, but this is for her, all for her, and the Iron Bull will damn well see to that.

Her legs spread far apart without instruction, and Bull positions his head between them, placing her thighs atop his muscular shoulders, flanking his thick neck. He breathes in the heady scent of his woman, rousing his already roused spirits, and kisses its source. His hands prop up her ass to angle her just right — as good an excuse as any to grab her somewhat fatter, much more grabbable ass — and he begins his onslaught, tongue and lips quickly sent into a frenzy against her cunt. Her moans are ecstacy to hear, diffused with uneven breaths and little cries just for his ears, and he can imagine her eyes rolling back behind fluttering eyelids and the heat pooled in her face. Everything — the taste, the smell, the sound, the feel, the image in his own head — is so raw and full that he has to roll his hips to create some friction between his flesh and his pants, to give his cock just a grain of relief as he builds her up to the peak she needs, closer and closer, higher and higher. And she loses control, becomes all and only body, matter over mind. One upward-jerking thigh collides sharply with his horn. Ellana doesn’t seem to give a damn. The Iron Bull considers it a peerless compliment, as potent a show of gratitude as her rhythmically twitching pussy, gradually slowing down, but never to a stillness. He waits, gives her a moment to swim in orgasmic drunkenness, then kisses her clit once more, causing a little shudder to speed through her, and then he stands up.

Over the course of one long, languorous sigh, Ellana wriggles her entire body back onto the mattress, turning over on her side, hand on her bump. A moment later she grimaces, just slightly, but it doesn’t cause much concern.

“Again?” Bull asks to confirm.

“Mm-hmm.” She nods, her eyes shut.

The healer called it “false labour,” the rehearsal before the show, in a manner of speaking. When Bull asked her if it was normal if it happened every time he made Ellana “come so hard she screams like an enraged dragon,” the healer, having had several months to acquaint herself with Bull, merely rolled her eyes and said yes. Ellana punched his arm and told him to stop bragging. In any case, there was no reason to fret over it, the healer assured them both, even if it could be sort of uncomfortable.

“I’ll let you rest through it.”

“All right.” She looks up to acknowledge him, then looks down and frowns slightly. “Aw,” she mewls like one might at the sight of a small, wounded animal. “You didn’t get yourself off?”

He’s not surprised that she notices; he’s surprised that his pants, even as generous as they are, have withstood the tension of containing his essentially ignored erection. “Well, I was planning to… No, never mind. Don’t worry about it, Kadan, I’ll take care of it myself.”

She rests her head on one hand, a sly, if not slightly dopey smirk on her face. “Let me watch you.”

Bull chuckles. “You’re just full of demands today, aren’t you?”

“Please let me watch you beat off your massive cock until you come,” she says, bobbing her head along to her feigned reverence. “Better?”

“Much better. Unnecessary, though.” And to back up his statement, as he’s saying it, he’s already working himself out of his hefty belt. He drops it down to the floor, along with his pants, leaving him in the buff, standing straight and tall. The reclining elf smiles appreciatively, her eyes wandering up and down but always finding their way back to the midpoint.

He takes ahold of his shaft and strokes from base to tip, starting off slow to entice her. Well, it’s also out of pure damn necessity, since he’s a few fast, solid strokes away from spilling here and now. He continues at this measured pace, smoothing his skin over the sensitive head, controlling himself, trying to. Ellana watches with an invested interest, occasionally grimacing through the pinches in her abdomen, but never allowing herself to be more than a little distracted by them. Bull takes a glance down, thinks about how much bigger he looks held in her little hands, twitches at the thought, grunts to keep it down. His hips move, thrusting his cock through his grip, fucking his hand, held as tightly as her cunt would constrict him, building himself back up to the edge he had to lull himself away from. Ellana’s image muddles between reflexive squints, becomes unsteady, but she remains there, his incomparable Kadan, the one at his back and in his bed, owner of heart and cock alike, a woman so slight made exquisitely full by him. There is no more holding back — every muscle beneath his waist tenses in unison, and then releases. He throws back his head and groans low and loud as his prick empties itself, propelling his seed forward, almost reaching the bed, then spilling downwards in smaller jets. His legs rattle as he tries to remain upright, the unsteadiness making his climax all the more intense, as if the waves of pleasure are rolling down all the way to his feet.

“Fuuuck,” he draws the word out, trying to hold on to that bliss for just an instant more.

“Ugh,” Ellana groans, jolting Bull out of that delightful wooziness. When he looks at her, she suddenly looks ashamed, and shakes an open palm in front of her. “No, no, that wasn’t for you. Last one hurt a bit.” She rubs her belly, just to reaffirm the source of her discomfort.

“You feeling okay?”

She nods. “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

“Enjoyed the spectacle, at least?”

Her smile tells him all he needs to know. Ready to let her relax through the rest of this, Bull begins to clean up the mess he made on her chamber floor, wiping it all up with a rag from their stockpile of rags for such purposes. He doesn’t really see the point in putting his pants back on, and assumes Ellana would get a little extra enjoyment out of him keeping them off, so he leaves them on the floor, delightfully ignored.

“Bull,” she calls out as he kneels down, finishing up his task as far as he can tell. “You know what I could go for?”

“Is it the rope? You sound like you want the rope.”

“A sandwich. One without vegetables.”

Bull shrugs, getting back up to his feet with his sullied rag in hand. “Practically guessed it.” Placing the rag aside, he begrudgingly puts his pants and belt back on, along with his earlier-discarded boots, feigning a big fuss out of it with grunts and irritated mumbling just to prod her into a little guilt for taking away his nudity. He gives her a little pat on the head, mussing up her already mussed up hair. “Don’t pop while I’m out.”

“I’ll try,” she says, fixing her hair so lazily that she somehow makes it even messier.

After a quick stretch and a relative assurance that his balance hadn’t been completely drained, Bull thuds his way down to the kitchens. Upon noticing his presence, the workers look up from their pots and pans for a moment to nod his way in greeting.

“What’s she want?” the cook closest to him asks, wiping her hands in her apron. From an outsider’s perspective, the curt question could from off as rude, but the opposite is true. Months ago, after finding out he was getting food for an expectant mother, she told him, “Listen, I’ve had five young ‘uns, and here’s a piece of advice for you: don’t keep her waiting for food on account of small talk of all things. Now shut up and tell me what she wants.”

“Sandwich. Nothing green,” he replies, saying no more than necessary. He considers asking for one for himself, but he knows that Ellana has one of those hungers that will make her take from him any and all food that he brings back up to her quarters, so he passes for now.

He exchanges a generous handful of coins as thanks for a plate of roast beef and trimmings, sans anything green, on two substantial pieces of rye bread. The upward journey back hits his legs harder, providing a slightly unpleasant reminder of the exceedingly pleasant events beforehand, but he soldiers on, because there is nothing more crucial in the world, in this moment, than getting this sandwich to Ellana, preferably while it’s still got some warmth to it.

“Got something big and meaty for you here, Elle.”

“Bull…”

“And don’t worry, your sandwich’s plenty meaty too.” He’s in the midst of convincing himself that she’ll definitely enjoy the dumb joke when he notices that she’s seated upright, next to a sizable wet spot soaking into the bedsheets, her hands wringing and her feet restless. “Uh, Kadan?”

“So there’s a very, very small chance I just pissed the bed, and, um.” Ellana clears her throat. “A much bigger chance that this false labour isn’t entirely false.”

Bull’s breathing stays steady, his heart rate too, as he takes enough calm, even steps to reach the bedside table and put down the lovingly-retrieved meal. Having freed his hands, he places them both on his sides and takes one long, deep breath.

“One job, Kadan,” he says. “I gave you one job while I was gone.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's that time! And it's a smut-free chapter, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
> 
> I had to Google a LOT of things that I think would make my husband really confused and suspicious if he saw them, and I've gotten through the first part of Ami McKay's "The Birth House" (Canadian author plug, woo) to get a more literary feel for where this was going, so I hope I can at least get it across that I tried. Oh jeez, did I try.
> 
> I hope you enjoy. We're almost all done here. :)

Ellana walks, or more accurately waddles, through the garden, her weight shifting with each short-gaited step. The healer told her it would do her good to move about while she was still able, that the women who do, more often than not, spend less time in the birthing bed, have more ease when their babes are finally ready to make their way into the world, and she will take all the ease she will get. She had no desire to confine herself to musty hallways to stretch her legs, so she went outside, wrapped in a thick shawl over her gown to fend off Skyhold’s ever-brisk air. Many of the garden’s plants are now in full-flowered bloom, petals of every shade and shape interspersed among one another, breathing their perfumed fragrance to be carried upon the air she inhales. She entertains the idea that it’s the Dalish blood in her calling her here, to commune with nature, to find peace and balance in its rhythms and cycles, to feel life all around her as she feels it within her.

Or the plants are mocking her. They don’t have to put up with this crap.

As a smattering of little red blossoms catches her eye, she feels her insides being wrung out like a wet cloth once more, and halts in place. She stops herself from doubling over and finds refuge against Bull, who has been at her side with every lap around the garden, arms ready to support her when another contraction hits. His hand rests on her shoulder, rubbing it with a delicacy one might not expect from someone of his countenance, and it is a most welcome comfort. Groaning through the pain, like the cramps that used to come to her every moon or so — only stronger, and stronger still with each passing hour — she leans against his torso, pressing her cheek against his chest. There is a steadiness and warmth to be had in his embrace, a strength almost, that she cannot conjure herself in her state, that she so very much needs.

“I’ve got you,” Bull tells her, wrapping his other arm around her. “Breathe through it.”

Ellana doesn’t respond with more than a grunt, not until the ache subsides, biding its time before its inevitable and impending return. Each time they ended it felt like when she could finally take her corset off after that one Orlesian soiree, that relief, that freedom, that ability to breathe — and she does breathe, deep and slow, like it’s a gift. But now, it was like being locked back into that corset again and again, for hours on end, with increasingly less forgiving intervals to savour being out of it.

“I could use a seat.” That last one drained her, made her far more wobbly than she felt comfortable being. However he did without her saying so, Bull can tell, because he keeps a firm, supportive arm around her as they amble towards a nearby bench.

Sitting down gives her the novelty of being in a different position and the relief of being off her feet for awhile, but not much more than that. She folds the corners of her shawl over one another, wrapping herself snug in it. Bull sits beside her, making the wood creak beneath his weight. He makes circles in the small of her back with his palm, and she revels in the small but satisfying release he brings to her stiff, besieged muscles.

“How are you holding up, Kadan?” he asks more or less casually, as if to someone who’s been busy all day making bread instead of a baby. Ellana suspects that he’s trying to keep any anxiety to himself, as to not subject her to more than she already dealing with.

“It’s not so bad,” she replies with a small shrug. It wouldn’t be a lie if she had added the words “compared to what I expected” to the sentence, because she _did_ anticipate much worse. Then again, she still does, knowing how far (or not) along she is in her labour, according to her healers and their assistants and their downright disappointing measurements, and how it’s been steadily getting harder to deal with. And the pushing — she has no damned idea what to expect for that, and regardless of whatever stupid boast he wants to make, no, she knows Bull’s size has not in the least prepared her for this.

Ellana sighs, trying to take her mind away from her vague anxieties, and turns to look at Bull, eager to blow off some steam. “And how about you? How are you dealing with so many different people poking around between my legs all the time?”

He scoffs. “Fine enough. I know I can do much better for you.”

“I wouldn’t be so confident. I have a feeling that one healer who told me my cervix is ripening nicely seems like the type who can treat a woman right.”

“Oh, _come on_ , people _only_ say that when they want to get in someone’s smallclothes.”

She snorts, gracelessly trying to cover up a laugh, then lets it go. She laughs and laughs hard until there’s a pain in her middle that is, in its own way, perfectly pleasant. He is an absolute boor, but he has not left her side for more than a fleeting moment during this whole time, and there is no other she would be happier to keep there. That’s especially true now, as another contraction seizes her, culling her wild laughter in but an instant.

 

It’s felt like small victories for him, the little smiles and the odd laugh he can get out of her between her pains. Made him feel like he was helping Ellana through this, making himself useful where he otherwise couldn’t do much of anything, giving her succor in a way he thought only he was capable of.

But now, as he hunches at her bedside, he feels that the time for his chatter and jests has long past. Awhile ago, he began to see no effect from it, no toothy grin from a ribald joke, no shimmer in crinkled eyes or exaggerated awe from a dramatic, antic-filled tale — only her exhausted face, and her heavy body heaving from one side to another, trying to find relief in drifting from position to position. When she talks, and when she’s not just spitting out swears at the hardest peaks hit, she tells him things like her own body has it out for her, because they’re coming so fast it’s like they’re overlapping over each other and it just can’t be right, having no time to recover, to prepare, to brace yourself for it. Can’t be right, isn’t fair.

Right now she’s gnawing desperately on a piece of bark that’s supposed to mitigate the harshness of her labouring. It’s from a tree that grows in the area where her clan roams, long-lauded for efficacy, praised by her mother and grandmother alike, and by no one more fervently than the clan’s Keeper. She managed to get a hold of some of it weeks ago, and when she did, she unwrapped the package with an almost childlike glee, proudly showing Bull what would make her birth no more painful that a stomachache of above average intensity, nothing more.

“Keeper’s full of shit,” she hisses. “It’s just _bark_.” But she keeps sinking her teeth into it, hoping her Keeper was right, waiting for the minute it’ll magically kick in and free her from all this.

He hates it, to see her in a pain she cannot Katoh away, to be able to do nothing more than offer a hand for her to squeeze as hard as she can.

And contrary to his earlier declaration, he’s actually getting pretty pissed at all these people shoving their fingers up Ellana’s vagina, or prying around and squinting to get a look at it. And it’s not because of some twisted and misplaced sense of possessiveness, fuck no — it’s because every time someone does it, they tell her “not yet” or “hold on a bit longer” or something equally as able to make her cry out in frustration and slam her head back into the pillows, and he has to bite down on his tongue to withhold his own frustration. He cannot blame the healers, of course, and he does not. This is out of their control, same as it is for Elle, same as it is for Bull, but at least they get the benefit of a disconnect. To them, she is a patient, a medical issue; she is not the woman they love suffering through the worst pain she’s ever known, and how could they even grasp that? But the old lady healer he had tormented endlessly with his racy questions months ago gives him a pat on the shoulder as she passes by, on her way to ready something or other for Ellana. She knows. She’s seen this many times before.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she gasps when a healer walks away after telling her “Soon. Not yet. But soon.” Her face is as red as blood fresh from a wound and streaked with sweat that’s made its way from her forehead, pooled with tears out of the corner of her eyes. “Just make it _stop_.”

“Elle, Kadan.” Bull holds her hand between both of his, pulling it close towards him, up against his chin, and in a low, gentle voice says to her, “You’ve taken down every demon and abomination in the book, every high dragon we’ve come across, every power-crazed bastard who ate their words when you kicked their asses. Corypheus — you took down _Corypheus._ You’ve done things no one else could do, and if you can’t do this, no one can.”

She tells him to shove it all right up his ass. Would if he could, if it’d make her feel any better.

 

“Good, good,” her little old healer comments after poking out from between the legs of her patient. She’s going to tell her that she’s “almost ready” or that she needs “just a smidge more time” before she can get this baby out, Ellana damn well knows it. She’s so set in the idea, so assured of what she’s going to tell her, that she almost doesn’t hear the healer say, “You can start pushing whenever you’re ready.”

Ellana just lies there, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, trying to process the words she tried to drown out. “What?” When she hears the words again, this time with her full attention, she laughs, either ecstatic from the news or going crazy from exhaustion, likely both. She squeezes Bull’s hand. He squeezes back.

“Help me up,” she quickly directs Bull, and he knows what to do, having received instruction ahead of time, even having a little practice with it. He assists her as she shifts out of her supine position, supporting her as she gets up and squats down, her feet flat against a thankfully firm bed, her back against the mountain of pillows behind her. It’s how every Dalish woman she’s ever seen in her current state does this, and while her the bark her Keeper kept at hand for births did nothing but make her mouth taste like wood, this seems logical, better than being on her back. Even just being upright makes it feel like the baby’s just going to fall right out, what with how low the heaviness feels in her abdomen now.

One of the healer’s assistants approaches to help keep her steady, then slinks away when he realizes he’s not needed. The Iron Bull is broad enough to do the job himself, and Ellana is glad for it. Even surrounded by a crowd of healers and helpers all bustling about, in this moment she is only truly aware of three people: herself, her child, and the father of her child, and there’s a comforting familiarity in that isolation.

“You’ve got this,” he assures her, patting her shoulder. She believes him this time.

She bears down, groaning and grunting through it with eyes shut, doing what seems to work to dull the immense pressure on her pelvis, following instinct, finding a rhythm. It still hurts just as bad, but she finally feels in control of her body instead of at its mercy, feels like she’s _doing_ this instead of having it done to her. So she keeps breathing, keeps pushing, keeps feeling that pressure descend bit by bit further.

“You’re crowning now,” her healer announces, her voice both so close and far away, as if in water. Ellana opens her eyes to look down, sees the healer’s attentive hands kept close to a head protruding from between her thighs, can barely believe what she’s seeing even as she’s feeling all of its intensity.

“Damn,” Bull says with a deep exhale, apparently in a similar state of disbelief.

“Slow and easy now, if you can,” the healer directs. “You don’t have to rush.”

Ellana tries to follow her gentle instruction, but it’s so hard, all this pain and excitement, and now the burning as the babe’s shoulders are on their way out — fuck, it burns a lot, too much, so much that she can hardly keep her eyes open after the next push, but she does, just enough and for long enough to see the child unceremoniously flop out into the healer’s ready hands.

“It’s a boy,” the healer announces warmly, her words interrupted by the pealing cries of Ellana’s newborn son.

A son. She has a son.

He has the grey skin of his father, that’s easy to see, but paler, all wrinkled and wet, covered in a flaky white film and blots of blood, his eyes sealed tight and his toothless mouth open to howl his lungs out — so many little features that should be unsightly in any other context, but here, before her, seeing all of it together, Ellana has never seen anything as perfect as this. The healer’s assistant rushes to his master’s side to sever the cord dangling from his navel, separating him from his mother’s body for once and for all. By the time Bull is finished helping Ellana out of her shaky squat, the healer is ready to hand over the baby to her, to let her hold her child for the first time.

Speechless, she holds him like a treasure, perceiving his weight in her arms, pressing him against her chest, knowing for a certainty that he and all of this is real. He is bigger than any newborn she’s ever seen in elven arms, but it doesn’t change how small and helpless he seems, bawling and squirming. She touches his hairless head, running her thumbs over the tiny, rigid stubs that just barely protrude from above his finely pointed ears, heralding the horns that are to come. The mattress shifts with Bull’s presence upon it, right beside her, but she cannot take her eyes away from where they are now.

“Ma da’len,” she whispers to him, slipping into her mother tongue. “Ma da’vhenan.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is! The (actually maybe not!) final chapter of this strange journey! It's taken a damn long while, but for something I so anxiously filled on a whim, I can't say I'm not proud that I at least did it. Thank you all for your kudos, kind words and support; I never could have done it without you.

Ellana Lavellan may be short, even shorter than most elves, and she may be small, but she’s as hardy as they come. Of that, the Iron Bull has no doubt. If it were not so, he’d not be here right now with their child asleep in his arms.

In the moments after the little one’s birth, he was pretty much dumbstruck just by his very existence. Sure, he knew he was there in Ellana’s belly, had felt him quicken, had even seen him jabbing his elbows and feet and whatnot against her skin, but to actually hold him is so different, like a revelation, equal parts insane and awe-inspiring.

Then, after all that awe had transpired, he quickly gained the impression that Ellana had actually pushed out a tiny person who had had _way_ more to drink than they could handle. Within the same twenty or thirty minutes, the baby had managed to chug down milk like it’d be all he’d ever get, burp most of it back up, piss himself, cry because he pissed himself, and conk out like nothing had happened at all.

And, well, Bull’s already pretty attached to the drunk little bastard.

He looks over at Ellana, in the midst of a well-deserved and long overdue nap that Bull had to convince her to take. She reluctantly conceded after he reassured her that he could handle watching their babe (“He can’t really go anywhere, after all”), and passed right out as soon as her head hit the pillow. And now, with her face squished against the pillow, mouth wide open, and drool pooling near her chin, he can really see the kid’s resemblance to his mother, even past all the Qunari features, and the temporarily (the healer swears) misshapen head.

And while he’s enjoying this less-than-refined image of his resting lover, he feels some floundering between his arms, drawing his attention back down. The kid’s stretching and wriggling his little limbs about, apparently for no reason other that he’s able to, as far as Bull can tell.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he says casually, like he just walked past someone he recognized in a bar. It doesn’t quite carry what he feels, but it’s what comes out anyway

He responds by gurgling and sticking part of a fist in his mouth.

“Good to hear.” Bull pulls a corner of the blanket that his son knocked off back over his pudgy middle, still giving him the freedom to jerk his arms and legs around as he pleased. When his hand brushes against his kid’s free hand, a set of small, wrinkly fingers wraps tight around one of his, taking up so little space but, at the same time, so very much.

Bull’s anxious, more anxious than he cares to admit, scared, scared shitless even. Any internal convincing he did over the months to prepare himself for fatherhood seemed to mean little with his own flesh and blood here in the world, dependence itself in such a tiny package. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to do this right, doesn’t know how to not screw his kid up, doesn’t know a damn thing — except that he loves him. That’s for sure. And maybe for now, that’s enough.

It doesn’t take too long for him to scrunch his face up and start yowling again, after a few of Bull’s unsure attempts at rocking him did nothing to stopper his little whimpers. And he swears that Ellana bolts upright as soon as that sound is on the _brink_ of existence. Reminds him a bit of a mother bear that thinks its cub is in danger, only at a smaller scale, though just as potentially dangerous.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he assures her, “He’s just hungry, I think.”

She rubs her eyes. “Who is?”

The speed that she got up doesn’t match the speed of her actually waking up, apparently. Bull gives her a pass; she’s had an insanely long day. “The baby, Elle.”

Ellana blinks a few times, staring ahead at Bull and their somewhat-blanketed son, and realization washes over her face, almost shamefully. “ _Right,_ I had a baby.” Now aware enough to know at least this, she holds out her hands with a sympathetic smile. Bull, using as much speed as he is comfortable knowing how fragile and squirmy the babe is at the same time, passes him over to his mother. She moves part of her gown aside, offering her breast to his crying mouth, and everything falls silent, save for the occasional suckling noise.

Bull laughs, purposefully softly enough to not startle the little guy out of his bliss. “Well, damn, I’ve been going about getting tits the wrong way my whole life. Kid makes it look too easy.”

Ellana carefully shifts her arms and hands around to provide more support. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it only works if you’re cute.”

He hisses in air through his teeth, like he just touched a hot stove. “ _Harsh_ , Kadan. I’m _plenty_ cute.”

She tilts her head to him with a knowing smirk. “Do you really want to make this a contest?”

With a sigh and a shake of the head, he capitulates, turning to the next thought that catches his attention. “Damn, still can’t believe you _made_ him.”

“ _We_ made him,” she corrects.

“Uh, not really. I did something any 12-year-old boy with some free time can do, but you,” he falters, gathering up words he still can’t really believe, even as he knows the truth in them, “you carried him, gave birth to him, you are _feeding him with your own tits right now_ — is there anything you can’t do?”

“Still working on talking to nugs.” Ellana sighs, shaking her head. “I just can’t get through to them.”

Bull laughs beneath his breath, until he realizes something that’s probably important. Maybe. He just assumes. “Hey, he still needs a name.” He did just call him ‘him’ multiple times, after all. “Unless Qunari titles are your thing — looks like a bard to me.”

“Has the lungs for it,” Ellana comments with a chuckle. “Just needs the coordination to play a lute.”

Bull smiles, giving some time for the joke to clear, and asks, “Did you have anything in mind?”

She looks down at her unnamed, nursing son thoughtfully, corner of her mouth tweaked up into her cheek. “Hm. What’s a name befitting of the firstborn son of the Iron Bull, I wonder.”

“The Iron Calf?” he suggests, just to get the ball rolling. That’s exactly why he’s thrown off when Ellanna looks like she’s pondering, seriously considering it. “Uh, that was a joke, Kadan.”

"La'len," she says softly, her eyes kept down, like she's addressing the baby instead of him.

"Come again?"

"La'len," she repeats, looking up at Bull. "It means 'calf.' And, in a more abstract sense, it can mean ‘potential.'"

Bull scoffs, enough exaggerated force thrown behind the noise to ensure its insincerity. "You elves and your abstractions. Everything can mean anything else, huh?" As she grins, sharing his amusement on some level, he sounds it out. "La'len." Hears it from his own mouth, gets a feel for it. “ _La’len._ Hm."

"Do you like it?" she asks. Her question is full of expectation, hope that he’ll like it as much as she does, and on that alone he would dub his son so. But there’s more here than making Ellana happy. Potential — that’s all his kid is. Pure potential. Able to do whatever he wants, whatever calls him, never to be impeded by another. It’s a little frightening, all that possibility, an infinite number of threads to choose from, but they’re all there, and they’re all his.

“It’s perfect.”

 

The months pass by in a haze of disrupted sleep, tender nipples, unpleasant bodily fluids, and even Inquisition duties before Bull and Ellana, as proud as they are drained, have a night to themselves. After La’len had slept for the good part of an entire night, they assumed that it was a freak occurrence — an alignment of the stars kind of event, almost. It had to happen a few more times before they could persuade themselves that this was now a _thing_. There’s almost a tangible sense of giddiness in the air when they grasp that they’ll have time for more than a desperate rutting or a race-the-clock climax without needing to find someone to watch over him (though the kid had become quite attached to his Uncle Krem, and his stuffed nugs). They adore their son, intensely, so much that they love him in spite of how much he’s swerved their previously ravenous sex life off course. That said, they’d never turn down an opportunity to set things back on course, even a bit.

So after they put La’len to bed for the night, creep out from his room (something that Bull has had to master since his arrival), and slip back into their room, there’s a space of about five seconds before they’re tearing off each other’s clothes and tangling into one another, still standing, not even making it all the way to the bed.

“You,” he whispers in that rough way that only he can, the way that makes Ellana so warm she thinks she’ll melt, “are getting fucked the way you deserve tonight.”

Her throat thrums when his teeth nip at her neck, leaving the first of multiple marks this night to show he still claims her. “And how do I deserve it?” she asks, every part of her thirsting for his answer.

Bull kisses the lobe of the ear he speaks into. “However you want. So,” he says, pulling back slightly and tipping her chin up, “What do you want me to do to you?”

Ellana puts her arms around his broad neck, letting herself drown in him even as she envelops him, and lends her voice to the desire that overshadows all others. “Get me with child.”

There is a moment of quiet as he raises a brow, taken aback. “Really?” he asks, with genuine curiosity.

“Well, yes.” Her hands, where they meet at his nape, begin to fidget with one another. “Do you not want to?”

“No, no, I do,” he assures her, resting both of his huge hands on her little shoulders. “Very much so, in fact.” His eyes slip downward for an instant, prompting Ellana, intentionally or not, to do the same, to see how easily she’s aroused him with those few, simple words.

“Then why so surprised?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to endure that pain again.” Bull huffs through his nose, finding the rest of his words. “I don’t know if _I_ can endure you in that pain again.”

She removes him from her embrace to put a gentle hand upon his scarred cheek. A soft smile crosses her lips when his eye meets hers. “Softie,” she says even more sweetly than she thinks she’s able to, uses it as a compliment, thanks him for the way he acts, for the way he is. “It’s not like it was for nothing; he was worth it all.” She gives her shoulders a little shrug. “Besides, I don’t think it’s _really_ as bad as I remember it.”

The look on his face shows some measure of doubt for that statement. “Uh-huh.”

“And the sex was fantastic.”

He grins. There’s something he cannot doubt. “Trying to knock you up was some of the best sex I’ve ever had, you know. And I didn’t even know I could do that.” A little grunt sneaks out of his throat. “And when you got all big and round, mmm…”

Her arms find their way back around him. “I loved the way you talked to me, all you said.” She feels her blood rush, her body hunger despite his rather chaste touch, just at the memory of his words. “Especially when you told me you’d keep me with child. Always.”

He holds her close, presses her into him with his hand at the small of her back, pushing his ready length against her supple belly. “Say the word, Kadan,” he says, drawing each word out nice and slow, “and I’ll be sure to see to that.

Ellana’s nails press into his back. “Just fuck me already, Bull.”

He makes a gruff little laugh from the base of his throat before heaving her off the floor and throwing her down on her bed, with no sign that it took any effort on his part.

“With pleasure.”

And what happens, happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been playing around with this idea, written a little bit of it already, but let's see what you think:
> 
> Pure fluff time skip epilogue, yea or nay?


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instead of an incredibly late update, consider it an early Christmas gift!

La’len has never experienced much silence, and he’s fairly sure he doesn’t want to — might drive him mad. So, he’s more than used to tuning an instrument with the accompaniment of steel crashing against steel, of arrows and bolts hitting their straw-filled targets, of recruits’ grunts and shouts mixed with Commander Rutherford’s familiar drilling calls, as he is now. He studiously turns the pegs of his lute, testing each minute change with a strum, checking the tone repeatedly until it’s _perfect_. And, once his perfectionism is properly sated, he presses his fingers against the strings, ready to once again practice the song he’s been working on for weeks.

“Hey!” his oldest sister, Ataashi, calls across the training grounds, one hand flailing around for attention, the other holding a broadsword without any visible effort. She's moving so energetically that her long twin braids are bouncing along with the rest of her. “Watch me!”

He looks up, and to his side notes his father's hand stretched forward, pointing at Ataashi. “Look at your sister. She's about to kick some ass.”

He's addressing the little girl perched up on his shoulders, La'len's toddling sister Antoinette. Her brilliantly-coloured ribbons, tied around her tiny horns, are probably her most striking feature. Well, until you learn her name, anyhow. As the story goes, when she was born, dad took one look at her and said, “Yeah, she's an Antoinette.” His mother apparently went along with it, assuming he'd soon realize how bizarre someone looking like her named Antoinette would be. But a few days later, she took one long, hard look at her daughter and said, “Huh. She _is_ an Antoinette,” and the name stuck for good.

“Ataasheeee!” Antoinette squeals, enjoying that syllable for as long as lungs will allow her to and throwing her chubby arms up in the air.

Knowing that she has gained the attention she wanted, Ataashi steps into a wide-legged combat stance in front of a training dummy, holding her blade up steady. Then, in one fluid motion, she whirls around, gaining momentum while not letting the weight of her weapon unbalance her relatively small stature (for a Qunari), and slashes through the dummy with an impeccable follow-through, lopping its head clean off.

His father bursts into cheers and applause, prompting Antoinette to do the same, and together they make as much noise as one might expect from ten people. La'len makes no sound, but instead smiles wide. She's improved a lot in these past few months, really worked on exerting control over her wild strength and it shows, so he can't help but smile. He keeps up that smile even as he wonders if he'd be doing as well as her, maybe if he'd even be doing better, it he hadn't stopped training.

For about as long as he can remember, La'len's had a weapon in his hand, whether it was a stick he applied his imagination to, a wooden sword, or true steel once he was old enough. He is, after all, the son of the Iron Bull, the renowned leader of the Chargers mercenary band, the Ben-Hassrath turned Tal-Vashoth, the Qunari who stood by Inquisitor Lavellan's side when she felled Corypheus, steel and strength incarnate, his father — what La'len spent his whole life striving to become. Or almost his whole life, until about a year ago, when it became clear to himself what he actually strove for.

And when he had no more doubts, he let his parents know he needed to talk to them. Once that day was a smidge quieter than usual, the three of them cloistered themselves away, hoping to avoid any disturbance, though that was always a huge gamble in a house as full as theirs. His mother, a week or two short from giving birth to his youngest brother Drago, stood as tall as she was able with her hand rested atop the back of the chair his father was seated in. That was always the way they positioned themselves when they had to speak with him, and presumably any of his siblings, to more-or-less even out their heights, to better visually demonstrate their equal shares of parental authority. Well, that's what La'len assumes, anyway; he can't actually be sure of it, but it seems the most reasonable explanation to him, knowing the two for his whole life.

“I want to travel, and perform,” said La'len, once his father customarily settled into his seat.

Three wide eyes greeted the declaration. “Really?” Bull asked.

La'len nodded, even as his throat went drought-dry. “A troupe in Val Royeaux wants to take me in as an apprentice.” A half-Qunari, half-elf troubadour (not that the elf part shows much, except in his height, somewhat). For as much as he feels he fits in in Skyhold, he knows he’ll be a peculiar sight on the road. But, hey, at least the novelty might draw some crowds. “Says I'm the best with a lute they've ever seen for how young I am.”

“You're _too_ young,” his mother said, a small but deep crease forming between her brows. “And you'd be so far away.”

“I'll be back.” He was, and is, sincere to his word. As much as he longs to see Thedas, its bustling cities and calm countrysides, its seashores and its midlands, he couldn't stand being away from his large, unusual family for too long.

“La'len,” said Bull, resting his arms on his thighs, leaning towards him. “Is this what you want to do?”

He inhaled deeply before answering. “Yes, it is.”

His parents turned their heads to look at each other, shared a series of wordless but expressive glances that they seemed to understand, and looked back at their anxious son.

“If this is what you want,” Bull began, “that's your choice to make.”

Then, because his mom's big elf eyes were already glistening and red with tears, and since the troupe gave him the option, La'len promised that he wouldn't leave until after his seventeenth birthday.

That's tomorrow.

He knows that they'll not drive him away from his path, and he knows they'd support pretty much whatever he'd choose to do, but when he sees how proud his father is when he sees Ataashi wielding her steel or how content his mother looks when Ashaad figures out a spell he's been shown, La'len wonders if he's robbed them of something, of what they wanted their firstborn to become.

Trying not to think about it anymore, he gets up to his feet, holding his lute as carefully as if it were a baby. It's an old, worn thing, a well-used but much appreciated gift from Maryden, Skyhold's resident minstrel and his intermittent teacher. It's been restrung countless times over a life longer than his own, and the wood has been warped beyond repair, but until he earns enough money to buy a new one, it's his only way to practice, and so he puts all his effort into keeping it safe and whole.

"Heading out?" His father asks when he leaves the bench. Antoinette's busy fiddling with one of her bows.

"I'll be at Herald's Rest if you need me."

"Have to say goodbye to your girl, huh?" he says with a grunt of a laugh, giving his greying beard a thoughtful rub.

La'len sighs, once again thankful that the shade of his skin helps to hide the fact that he's blushing. "Shallie's not... she's just a friend."

"Whatever you say, kid. Don't stay out too late." His daughter is now trying to wrap her undone ribbon around his horn and, despite her intense look of concentration, she seems to neither possess the hand-eye coordination nor any idea of how to tie a bow to make it work. "Want some help with that?"

"I can do't!" she returns defiantly, eyes still focused on her task.

La'len doesn't stick around to see how this will go, even if he's a bit curious about it. He makes his way past the training grounds, the half-frozen dirt crunching beneath his thick boots. The sound is comforting, familiar, something he may not hear again for quite some time, and so he makes sure to commit it to memory, for times when the distance makes him ache for home.

He can't focus on it for very long though, as his ears pick up the also-familiar sound of wood smacking against wood, accompanied by exceptionally exaggerated battle cries and grunts. It's still comforting to hear, in a way, though not exactly soothing. When he turns the corner around the battlement walls, into a grassy area cleared of snow, he sees what he heard: his little twin brothers, Fero and Fariel, exchanging blows with toy swords while channeling the heat of battle through their high-pitched, six-year-old voices.

"Prepare yourself for your _doom_ , Corypheus!" Fero cries out, with every ounce of drama he knows how to pour into his words, his wavering ability to pronounce the letter "r" notwithstanding.

"Hey, _you're_ Corypheus!" Fariel contests, riposting a strike, more-or-less.

"I was the bad guy last time!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Hey!" shouted Krem, seated on a nearby box with his back against the wooden wall behind him, pulling a thread taut through a half-finished creation. Next to him is another one of his sisters, Seranni, cross-legged and hunched over, completely focused on her own sewing. "Everyone can get a turn being the crazy magister ass."

That seems to appease nobody, given their continued bickering. With a small chuckle, he approaches Krem, exchanging nods as they make eye contact, and carefully rests his lute on an unoccupied box. He then gently touches his sister's shoulder. "Seranni." He waits while she continues stitching, reaches the corner of her piece of fabric, then stops and looks up at him. "Will you keep an eye on this for me?"

She nods enthusiastically, breaking out into a toothy smile, saying nothing. La'len gives her a pat between the horns and gives her a grateful smile in return. In the ten years of her life, he has never heard her say a word, and nobody quite knows why she’s never uttered one. But she’s far from simple, as a shallow observation may draw one to conclude, much to the very vocal displeasure of her parents. No, she may be somewhat more timid than the rest of her family, but she’s as sharp as a whetted knife, better with her hands than people twice her age, and remarkably adept at making sure she speaks for herself, words or no. While she tends to bring out her parents’ inner mama bears more often than any of her other siblings, sometimes to her annoyance, La’len is certain she’s in the very best of hands.

And, knowing his instrument is now in good hands, La’len breathes in deeply, shakes out his arms, and approaches the still-feuding twins. Throwing out his arms and sucking in his gut to seem gaunter, he deepens his voice further to bellow, "Tremble, mortals, for you face the wrath of Corypheus!"

Fero and Fariel stop to stare at their older brother, then at each other, confused, until a devilish gleam of understanding appears in their eyes, and the game begins. They charge together, weapons raised up, and unleash a flurry of swings and strikes, undisciplined but impressively numerous. They're still fairly easy to for La'len to avoid, but he makes sure to let their attacks connect, to his brothers' shared delight, as he peppers his act with more exaggerated taunts and laughs. Fariel eventually gets a good jab close to his opponent's ribs, good enough to be called a fatal strike, so La'len clutches the "wound" and begins lamenting his thoroughly trumped plans.

La'len grew up with all the stories of Corypheus, of all the horrors and destruction he wrought, in books and paintings and songs and, of course, first-hand accounts. He knew from an early age, and understood better as time went on, how tirelessly his mother and her Inquisition fought to bring failure upon him, and just how close their world was on the brink of destruction, all because of Corypheus.

And now, nearly two decades after his defeat, he seems little more than a villain reluctantly played by unlucky children in their games. La'len can think of no greater insult to his memory, and so he gladly plays the role for that reason alone.

“Insignificant wretches!” he spits, crashing down to his knees. “What impudence you must possess to think that you could _truly_ defeat me, Coryph—“

Fero interrupts the overacted harangue with a final whack at his chest. La’len, trying not to laugh, concedes and crumples down on his belly, limbs all sprawled about. Cheers of victory erupt from outside of his sight. Snow or not, the dirt is still ice-cold and he’s always leaned more towards the Qunari outlook on shirts, so La’len doesn’t stay dead for long. He gets up, brushes the lingering dirt and grass off of his skin and pants, slips away from the celebration, and retrieves his lute, thanking Seranni once more.

“Nicely done,” Krem comments. “Almost thought the bastard was back for revenge.”

La’len bows, with an exaggerated flourish. “Thank you, I was thinking of taking that one on the road.”

“Really leaving, huh?”

He nods.

Krem clickshis tongue, shaking his head. “It’s madness. Feels like yesterday we’re all betting if you’ll come out more ox or rabbit, and now we’ve got a whole herd of you running around here.”

La’len starts to laugh. “Wait.” He arches a brow. “Did you really bet on that?”

“Sure, all the Chargers got in on it. Skinner got real mad about how off she was, insisted that you couldn’t even tell you had a drop of Qunari in you.” La’len thinks of how all his siblings have looked when they’re born, these wrinkly grey lumps with the buds of horns, and imagines just how much she bet on this to defend something so plainly wrong. “Think she’s still bitter about it too.” Krem laughs, then sighs and gives La’len a sturdy pat on his bicep, a soldier’s gesture. “You stay safe out there. Too many people here waiting for you to come back.”

“I know.” He knows all too well.

Picking up where he left off, La’len continues on his way to Herald’s Rest. As the establishment comes into view, the scent of ale and hot bread and stews fresh from the pot cause his footsteps to quicken, as does the curious rhythm that the bar songs and conservation make all together. He enters, scanning the room for an empty table, finds one right in the midst of the crowd and the noise, and seats himself. Then, like a soldier readying for battle, he breathes in to steel himself for the first strike, preparing the first chord of his song.

A nearly overflowing pewter mug slams down on the wooden surface in front of him, making a sound that stands out even amongst all the ruckus that surrounds him. “Sorry,” he says automatically, “I didn’t order anything—“ He stops himself when his neck cranes to see the person who put the mug there.

“On the house,” says Shallie, flashing a grin so wide it practically forces her eyes shut. ¨For the birthday boy.¨

From any seat in the tavern, La’len generally has to look down to meet the eyes of a dwarf, and to meet the eyes of the human, up. For Shallie, neither action is necessary. She’s the daughter of a dwarven man and his human wife, an odd mix to be sure – but the horned elf isn’t exactly one to talk.

“You didn’t need to,” he insists, even as he picks it up.

“I didn’t?” She puts on an affected air of surprise. “Well, damn, if I have no obligations, I guess you’ll just have to give that back.”

By virtue of considerable difference in arm length, La’len deftly avoids her grasp, though not deftly enough to avoid spilling some of her gift. “Doesn’t mean I won’t keep it.”

“Well, then,” she says, plucking a leaf off of his horn, an unintended memento from his stint as Corypheus, “I’ll just have to accept this as payment, I guess.”

“Shallie!” her father barks from behind the bar counter. “Back to work!”

Looking over at him, she puffs her cheeks out, putting the perfect image in La’len’s mind of the huffy girl he knew as a child. After deflating, she begins to walk away, gives La’len a hard pat on the shoulder and says, “Meet me later, before you leave, okay?”

And she blends into the crowd before he can respond, thus sealing in a “yes” for his answer. He knows she knows he wouldn’t say no, especially today. Next to his family, there’s nothing that makes him rethink leaving than his closest friend.

Skyhold’s inhabitants had its fair share of children in the years following the Inquisition’s glorious victory, providing La’len with more than enough playmates around his age, but there was something that always drew him to Shallie. He wasn’t a shy kid by any means, but there was an ease in talking with her that didn’t seem to exist with anyone else, even in his youth, and it was likely because they could relate to each other. They swapped tales about their parents’ backgrounds clashing, laughed over people’s evident surprise when La’len breaks out into near-fluent Elven or Shallie recites verse upon verse of the Chant from memory, shared their frustrations when someone thought they were just making their less evident half up, and, after much heated deliberation, settled on the words Quelvish and Dwarman to refer to what they were.

In the past few years, when he had started spending a lot more time with Shallie, his parents had repeatedly teased him with the possibility of the world’s first known human-dwarf-Qunari-elf baby in the not too far-off future, a possibility he has tried both protesting and ignoring whenever they brought it up, to little effect.

Even so, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t the _least_ bit curious about it, but that doesn’t seem like the best thing to admit to Shallie. Or to anyone, for that matter. Ever.

Clearing his mind of such thoughts, he turns his attention to the mug in his hand, taking a cautionary sip to determine its contents. He gives it a swish in his mouth: spiced apple cider, sweet and smooth, diluted to the point of negligible alcohol content, prepared especially for him. Of all the things he inherited from his father, his formidable alcohol tolerance was not among them, as he very regretfully learned when he tried some Dwarven beer that Shallie offered him once. He went from feeling tipsy to getting knocked flat on his ass in no time, and supposedly Shallie had to go find his dad to drag him home because nobody else could move him. And if that wasn’t enough to sour his outlook to alcohol, the awful hangover and the shame of his mother doting on him “like a 200-something pound sick baby” (her words, not his) pretty much made him swear off anything remotely strong.

But this? This is perfect.

And, once again, he finds himself too occupied to practice his song. La’len’s a hard target to miss, so, in between sips of his drink, he finds himself greeted an onslaught of well-wishers: friends made over the years, people who’ve watched him grow up, soldiers who fought alongside his parents and became parents themselves here, so many different people who know he’s about to step out into the world. By the time he finally manages to drain his mug, he notices the shade of the sky outside the window, realizing how much time has slipped away from him – and still without a single note ringing out from his lute. He stifles a curse and excuses himself, weaving through the crowd, trying not to knock anyone over as he does. Once out of the tavern, separated from the crackling fires and warm people, the near-night air makes him shiver. He spends the trek back home reconsidering his stance on shirts, but by the time he’s at his doorstep, as usual, he shrugs and maintains his view that he can go without just fine.

His family all lives in an old storehouse renovated into rather homey quarters, surprisingly spacious given the number and size of its inhabitants. It’s certainly less luxurious than the Inquisitor’s quarters, as he’s seen them various times after years of exploring, but it’s leagues more practical in practically every way. As the story goes, shortly before Ataashi was born, as his parents were heading off to bed, Ellana stopped, looked up the flights of stairs, and simply said, “No.” The builders seemed more than happy to accommodate her obstinacy, what with her saving the world and all, and created the only home that La’len’s ever remembered.

After dislodging the snow from his boot soles, he notices Ashaad, his thirteen year-old brother and apparently the only of his siblings to have inherited their mother’s capacity for magic. He’s huddled by the hearth over a formidable, thickly-bound tome. Unless he’s receiving direct instruction, Ashaad is rarely seen without his face buried in a book, whether its subject is magic, history, or even fiction, when the mood takes him. He had always looked suited to his more scholarly pursuits, being scrawnier as a child than La’len had been, but his shift into adolescence and its accompanying insatiable appetite has thus far been dramatic, making him look more like the Iron Bull than anyone probably expected. Their father, as of late, often contends that he needs a neck that thick to hold a brain that big.

“Hey there, Ash,” he says, hoping his brother wasn’t _too_ deep in concentration. “What are you reading today?”

He quickly puts his finger on the last word he read and looks up. “The Fundamental Principles of the School of Primal Magic and its Applications Thereof,” he replies.

“Ah.” La’len tilts his head slightly, enough to feel the weight of his horns on one side. “Haven’t gotten to that one yet, myself.

“I don’t think you’d like it. Nothing rhymes.” Ashaad chuckles, the eyes that he shares with his father brightening up. “Hey, you’re going to Val Royeaux, right?”

“I’ll be there a lot, I think, yeah.”

“Do you think you can visit the University of Orlais? They’ve got the biggest library in all of Thedas and—“

“You want me to get you a book, don’t you?”

“Um, a book or two, sure,” he mumbles, pulling a folded page out of his pants pocket and offering it to La’len, still keeping his finger steady on the book on his lap as he does so. Unfolded, it reveals a list of titles that leaves no space, most of them made equally incomprehensible by virtue of their complex names and Ashaad’s comically sloppy penmanship.

“I’ll, uh,” La’len begins, staring blankly at the piece of paper. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Ashaad pours every drop of gratitude in him into a massive smile, showing off that still childish demeanour that his bulkier muscles and broad horns still fail to mask. He’s about to say something else, but gets cut off by a woman’s audible frustration in the next room over, catching both of their ears. There is only one woman it could possibly be and, as has been proven to La’len time and time again, one source of frustration. La’len puts his lute down and turns to follow the sound, quickly sharing an unspoken gesture of understanding with Ashaad for his departure.

Confirming his guess perfectly, a familiar sight greets him upon entering the kitchen: with her back facing him, there stands Ellana Lavellan, the Herald of Andraste, the illustrious Inquisitor, mighty and respected, wobbling up on the tips of her toes with her fingertips flailing to reach something on a high shelf, grumbling at whoever let it there. The back of her sling is visible, as is the rhythmic bouncing of her other arm, a stopgap measure to keep the infant sibling within in from bawling.

“Bull, you are in so much trouble if you did this,” La’len’s mother snaps, half-playfully and half-actually-mad, as he takes a few steps closer across the wooden floor. “Now grab this for your son, would you?”

Before she can turn to face who she’s actually talking to, La’len grabs the desired object – a jar of horn balm, it seems – with little effort expended. When she turns to face him, she jerks, startled, and then presses her hand to her chest. “La’len, I could have sworn—“ She gives her head a shake. “Sometimes I forget that your father’s not the only one stomping around here like that now.” She smiles, and beckons him to kneel down to her level, planting an appreciative kiss on his cheek when he complies. “Ma serannas, da’vhenan.”

“De da’rahn, mamae. Is Drago all right?”

“He’s just grouchy.” She looks down at her youngest child, all bundled up against her, her expression showing more concern than her voice. “He’s starting to cut his horns, poor thing.”

La’len can’t remember his horns cutting through, obviously, but he knows how terribly they itch in their growth spurts and how nothing seems to be an adequate scratch, save for the jar of the stuff he’s unscrewing now. “Want me to apply it?”

“I suppose you’d do a better job. You would know more about horns than me.” She shifts a fussing Drago around, uncovering his head. “Having eight of you makes no difference. It’s still like, hmm, trying to imagine what having a tail is like, I guess.”

La’len tills the strong-smelling cream with his fingers, puts the tin aside and, dividing it between his hands, gets to work, using the same circular motion with each thumb. “You don’t need to worry about it. All our horns are fine.”

“More or less.” She stretches out her arm to touch a shallow gash near the tip of La’len’s horn, accenting the action with a sigh, almost nostalgic. “I was inconsolable when this happened to you.”

The memory comes to mind as Drago’s fussing already begins to taper off. He can’t recall how old he was exactly, but his horns had begun to sprout out sideways rapidly, too rapidly for him to adapt to. He was chasing Ataashi through the fortress in a game of some sort, and ran a little too close to a doorframe, chipping off part of his horn and part of the frame all at once. Better than anything, he remembered his mother holding him and crying over letting such a thing happen, and his father trying to convince her that it was no big deal, like a scuffed knee. It took a lot of convincing.

“Just a scratch, and I can make up all kinds of impressive stories about how I got it.”

“Be sure you don’t make it _too_ impressive, da’len. Don’t say something like a dragon tried to bite your head off and scraped its fangs on it. Your story has to be believable.”

La’len stayed quiet in thought for a moment. “Isn’t… isn’t that one of dad’s stories?”

“If a dragon got its teeth anywhere near his head, it’d get a razor-sharp icicle right to the face, believe me.” She huffs. “But… don’t tell him I told you that. He really gets into telling that one.”

He’s about to swear himself to absolute secrecy, but the sound of a small-scale stampede from the front of the house, then inside of it, catches his ears.

“Ah, Bull’s back from wrangling.” There’s that warm look on his mother’s face, the one he’s seen so many times, when she knows that her whole family is gathered under the same roof. Will she make that face even when he’s gone, he wonders, and frowns a bit without his own noticing.

With Drago apparently soothed, La’len rinses his hands off with water from a nearby jug. From the entrance, he can hear Fero and Fariel talking over each other excitedly about their showdown with Corypheus earlier in the day, recalling every miniscule detail, both ones he remembers and doesn’t, from the encounter.

“And then, dad, and then,” says Fero, and La’len can tell he’s bouncing up and down over this part, “I hit him so hard he _exploded_.”

“Damn. I wasn’t making things explode until I was twice your age,” the Iron Bull replies as he walks into the kitchen. Antoinette is asleep in his arms, with her own around his neck as best as they can reach, the twins are at either side of him, and Ataashi is back near the fire, talking about something with Ashaad while Seranni sits down and cranes her neck to get a better look at his book, whatever she was sewing with Krem still in her hands. A ribbon, the one La’len saw Antoinette struggling with earlier, is tied simply around Bull’s horn. La’len tries to stifle a laugh at it.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he snorts. “Nothing.”

Bull turns his attention to Ellana. “Hey, Kadan, all these kids followed me home. Can we keep them?”

She still produces a genuine laugh, even if the joke has seen more than enough use before. “All right, but only if you can manage to put the twins to bed.”

He looks down at both of them, still riled up from telling their wild tale, emulating the way their father tells stories but without the ability to keep his cool demeanor. “You ask a lot of one man, Elle. I already got attached to them, gave them names and everything.”

“Take it or leave it, Bull.”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “Come on, you two. If you’re good, I’ll tell you a dragon story.” If he had meant to calm them down will that, it was a spectacular failure.

“Fereldan Frostback! I wanna hear about the Fereldan Frostback!”

“No! Sandy Howler’s the best, tell that one!”

He leaves with the room Antoinette, unaffected by the feuding of the twins in his wake, insisting that he’ll tell them both stories, making it seem like he’s doing them a huge favour when La’len is well aware that his father loves having an audience, and there are few more enthusiastic audiences than his own kids at this age. Ellana follows, presumably to try to have Drago get some sleep now that he’s not wriggling around as much. Suddenly feeling solitary, an odd feeling in a full house, he gravitates back towards Ashaad and the pleasant heat of the fireplace.

Ataashi, upon noticing her older brother, stomps up in front of him, her muscular arms akimbo. She still manages to be quite intimidating even when she has to look up at him, being a head shorter than La’len. “Ashaad said you’re getting him something,” she huffs. “You _better_ be getting me something too.”

Ashaad, looking guilty, steers his eyes away from his brother’s gaze. La’len sighs. “All right, what do you want?”

“Those little pastries they always serve when Orlesians come visit, you know, the ones with the chocolate on top and that cream inside, uh…”

“Éclairs?” Ashaad suggests, then quickly looks away again.

“Yeah, éclairs! Bring me éclairs!”

“Éclairs?” La’len echoes back and Ataashi nods. “You want me to bring éclairs back here from Orlais?” That word is starting to sound really weird. Éclair. _Éclair._ “I think pastries would go bad by the time I got home. Is there something else you want?”

The crackling fire makes the only sound in the room as she thinks.

“An Orlesian pastry chef?”

He doesn’t know if he should laugh or not, because he’s not sure if she’s actually messing with him or not. “I’ll keep an eye out for one.”

“You’re the best!” she replies with a laugh, making it seem like she’s just making a joke. La’len really hopes she is, anyway.

Seranni, having watched the exchange with interest, tugs at the cuff of La’len’s trousers to gain his attention. He looks down, then squats down to her level, more or less, and asks, “And what can I get for you, Seranni?”

She doesn’t need a moment to think it over. She holds up her project – a stuffed nug in need of stuffing, La’len now realizes – and lets him figure out the rest. “A nug?” he guesses. She shakes her head, but seems pleased that her creation is recognizable. She taps a finger on its burlap hide. “Fabric?” That gets a nod out of her, and he grins, victorious. “Fabric it is. The best I can find.”

At this rate, he’s pretty much locked into bringing something home for everyone. He sits himself down and brainstorms aloud for the siblings not present. Fero and Fariel? Something that has to do with swords, or dragons, or something in that vein – anything their dad would also find neat. Antoinette? Fancy Orlesian ribbons. He hopes she’s still in her ribbon phase when he comes to visit. Drago? Anything that seems right, really.

“Just _anything_?” says Ataashi, an eyebrow raised. “Don’t you want to get him something he’d like?”

“He’s a _baby_.”

“So? Babies have personalities too.” Her tone has turned surprisingly defensive. “Likes and dislikes. How do you think he’d feel if you got him something you didn’t even think about?”

Before this conversation can go any further, there’s a tapping at the threshold, drawing La’len’s attention away. His mother’s there, arms loosely crossed against her chest, eyes focused on her firstborn. “Speak with you a moment, da’len?”

He gets up from the floor and begins to follow her, though he doesn’t need her guidance to know where she’s taking him. It’s the same room they always go to speak, the room where the Iron Bull sits and Ellana Lavellan stands beside him, the room where he told him he’d be leaving tomorrow. Before they go through the door, his mother whips around to face him, and he stops in his tracks, afraid of barreling into her. He does not, thankfully

“Cover your eyes.”

He blinks, following the order for a split second. “What?”

“Cover your eyes,” she repeats, which a mischievous lilt in her voice that La’len isn’t sure how to react to. While he ponders that, she puts her hands on her hips. “Just do what your mother says.”

“All right, all right,” he says with a chuckle, throwing his palms over his face. He hears the squeak of the hinges as she opens the door, steps forward at her behest, and feels one of his horns bump into the doorframe, stopping him.

His mother curses beneath her breath before she begins to fuss. “Are you all right, da’vhenan? Does it hurt?”

“The frame’s more hurt than he is, Elle,” says his father, somewhere in front of him.

“It’s fine, mamae,” he insists, though the relatively small amount of pain was still enough to make him reflexively draw his hands away. “I’ve taken worse hits when I used to train…”

His voice dilutes down to nothing, though his mouth remains open, without a sound, and for a moment he wonders if there was something in Shallie’s gift that’s making his mind play tricks on him. There, in front of the chair he usually sits in, stands the Iron Bull, and in his hands, with a delicacy that one usually doesn’t assume of the Qunari mercenary, is a lute.

Ellana, noticing that he has noticed, inhales and quickly says, “Surprise! Watch your horns.” She pulls him fully into the room by the wrist, as best as she is able.

His father steps forward and, still with caution, offers the instrument to La’len. “Happy birthday, kid.”

He’s still struggling to gather up his voice, like it’s gone off in all directions outside of him and he needs to inhale it all back in to even make a sound. His eyes are glued to the lute, to its flawless sheen, to its obvious craftsmanship, to its abnormal size, adapted for a larger than average player. It has been made just for him, he can tell.

“You’re allowed to take it,” says Bull. “It’s yours, you know.”

Another deep breath, letting the words surface. “I didn’t know... I didn’t think…”

“Didn’t think what?”

La’len looks up, making contact with his father’s gaze. “That you were okay with this.” He nods down at the lute. “With what I wanted to do.”

He catches a hint of disappointment in his eye, and the shadow of a frown on his mouth. “Then I must have screwed something up along the way, huh?” When he gets no reply, because La’len just can’t think of a reply for that, Bull sighs, breaking the silence. “La’len, you know what your name means, right?”

“It’s, uh, short for halla’len. Means foal, or calf.”

“No, not literally, elves are never literal.” At that, Ellana, now seeming even smaller at his side, shrugs to show her acceptance of its veracity.

“Potential,” he answers instead.

“Right.” His father looks to the side for the moment, as if in thought. “Look, when you were born, you were just this squalling little ball of fat with a dopey face and a weird-shaped head” –Ellana smacks his arm— “Well, he _was_ , Kadan. So, now here you are, normal-looking head and all, using all that potential I saw when, uh.” He shakes his head with a grunt, then stretches his arms forward once more. “Yeah, I’m no good at this. Take it. You deserve it.”

Ellana pats the spot she hit a moment earlier and assures him that he’s doing just fine. La’len carefully takes the lute into his hands, appreciating even more the painstaking labour that must have gone into manipulating the wood so intricately, for once holding an instrument that doesn’t at all feel like a toy in his hands. He runs a finger along the fretboard, following a string all the way up to the peg it’s tied tight around. An almost breathless “thank you” is all he can manage to say.

As his father’s insisting that it’s no big deal, La’len puts his gift aside and throws his arms around him, unsure of how he’d react to something his son had pretty much abstained from for years now – if he’d see it as a childish gesture, or get uncomfortable – but unable to stop himself from doing it. Bull just lets out a low laugh, then reciprocates, giving him a few hard slaps on the back. Ellana joins in with her usual hug, one with so much strength that it almost puts the Qunari warrior to shame.

“I guess you like your gift, then?” She asks, with a proud chuckle following up the question that really doesn’t beg an answer.

“It’s amazing.” La’len steps back, having been reminded. “Speaking of gifts,” he begins, “I’m bringing something back home from Orlais for everyone. Is there something you’d want?”

His parents look at each other, conversing without words, and then his father pats his shoulder. “Bring back yourself. That’s good enough.”

The response is practically a cliché, just like in those grand stories where the son is about to go off into the world in search of adventure, riches, dragons, or whatnot – he’s seen it over and over again in the outsets of novels. And despite that, he can do nothing but smile.

“And some of those, uh, éclair things. Those are delicious.”

And so the cliché, like so many of his opponents, succumbs to the Iron Bull. Ellana looks about ready to give his arm another smack, but just rolls her eyes and kisses La’len’s cheek. His bending down is reflexive.

“Don’t worry about getting anything for me, da’vhenan. Get something nice for Shallie instead, something that shows her how much you care.”

“ _Mom_.”

Bull claps his hands together. “Hey, yeah, they’ve got this really fancy wine in Val Royeaux that ladies seem to go crazy for—“

“ _Dad._ ”

“And the first time this little elf lady here had some, you should’ve seen—“

“ _Bull.”_

“What? It was hilarious, he’d love to hear about it. So we’re playing Wicked Grace with all the Inquisition bigshots, and—“

“Play something for us, La’len,” Ellana begs, grasping his wrist in big-eyed desperation.

“Huh?” That actually seem to snap his father out of his intent to tell a story, not an easy feat by any means. “Hey, yeah, show us what you can do with that hunk of wood.”

Ellana, visibly relieved, joins Bull’s side as he takes his seat, making an audience of two for him. La’len positions the instrument between his hands for playing, getting a feel for a weight and shape foreign to him after years of practice with Maryden’s hand-me-down.

“It may sound a bit off,” he admits, fiddling with the pegs and methodically flicking the strings. He’s close to glowing in glee at the remarkable resonance, a quality greater than he’s ever known. “Since I’m not used to it yet.”

“Like a new sword, huh?” That’s his father’s way of understanding it, and that’s what it is: understanding.

“It will sound wonderful, _da’len_.” She’s already choking up a bit.

La’len, finally satisfied with his tuning, presses his fingers against his lute’s elegant neck, readying himself to play that song he’s been practicing for weeks straight. He looks back once more at his Elven mother and Qunari father, seeing nothing but attention, nothing but pride, then, inhaling deeply, plucks the first note for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish grabbed from: http://fenxshiral.tumblr.com/post/111735086898/anethara-haren-sorry-for-being-a-bother-but
> 
> WELL this got extremely out of hand, was patched together by big chunks of writing divided by huge, long droughts in the last few months, ended up way longer than I ever expected it would, and HERE IT IS WOW. They probably could have had this many kiddos in the time it look me to write this dang chapter (and if you guessed right, your prize is in the mail). So, to all my readers over the course of me writing this, thank you again for your support, and I hope this rambling fluffy epilogue is a satisfying ending to some weird smutty romance I had a blast writing.


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